‘Cold War Mentality’: China Slams Bipartisan Bill Bolstering American Competitiveness

Beijing slammed a U.S. bill aimed at bolstering America’s economic edge and countering the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

“The bill is full of Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice,” the Foreign Affairs Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) said in a statement reported by The Washington Post Wednesday. “It slanders China’s development path and its domestic and foreign policies.”

The bill, dubbed the U.S. Competition and Investment Act (USCIA), passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support Tuesday. It would inject $250 towards domestic chip manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing and more, with $52 billion going specifically to U.S. semiconductor production.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a news conference Tuesday that China was discussing an anti-sanctions bill that countered foreign “interference.” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who is allied with Beijing and under U.S. sanctions, told public broadcaster RTHK that the anti-sanctions bill would give western governments a “taste of their own medicine.”

A Long March 7 rocket lifts off from the China’s Wenchang Space Launch Center. The U.S. bill seeks to curtail the communist country’s economic and military ambitions. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

The USCIA comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and China. President Joe Biden has maintained tough-on-China policies adopted by former President Donald Trump, signing executive orders protecting U.S. manufacturing and even expanding on a Trump-era order banning domestic investment in Chinese companies. (RELATED: Biden Hits Chinese Tech Companies With Sanctions)

The Biden administration also announced Tuesday that it would create a cross-department task force addressing bottlenecks in critical U.S. supply chains in an effort to ensure that China cannot exploit them.

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