IV 

116TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. CON. RES. 121 

Recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the greatest foreign threat 

to United States peace, security, and stability. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OCTOBER 20, 2020 

Mr. BIGGS submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred 

to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 

Recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the greatest 

foreign threat to United States peace, security, and stability. 

Whereas the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a population of approximately 1,400,000,000, compared to the 

United States population of approximately 330,000,000; 

Whereas the PRC’s economy is the second largest in the 

world, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), behind only the United States; 

Whereas the PRC’s GDP will likely surpass United States 

GDP in the coming decades; 

Whereas the PRC has the largest active duty military in the 

world; 

Whereas the PRC has committed to aggressively modernizing 

its military capabilities in the coming decades; 


pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS
2 

•HCON 121 IH 

Whereas the PRC possesses nuclear-capable intercontinental 

ballistic missiles; 

Whereas the PRC does not share the democratic or free market values of the United States; 

Whereas Xi Jinping has been the de facto paramount leader 

of the PRC since November 2012, when he attained the 

positions of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist 

Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission; 

Whereas Xi became the head of state of the PRC in March 

2013, with a title usually labeled ‘‘President’’ in Western 

sources; 

Whereas President Xi has decisively broken with the foreign 

policy restraint practiced by his immediate predecessors; 

Whereas President Xi declared in a 2018 speech before the 

National People’s Congress that the PRC ‘‘must ride on 

the mighty east wind of the new era, charge forward with 

a full tank and steadily steer the wheel with full power’’; 

Whereas the PRC has neoimperial ambitions to spread its 

power throughout the world; 

Whereas the PRC launched the Belt and Road Initiative 

(BRI) in 2013, to offer financing for transportation and 

energy infrastructure projects in dozens of countries; 

Whereas many of the BRI-participating countries are poor, 

unstable, or potentially vulnerable to debt dependence on 

Beijing; 

Whereas the United States has very sensitive strategic relationships with many BRI-participating countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan; 

Whereas the PRC has released few details about the BRI, despite widespread calls from the United States, the InterVerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121

pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS
3 

•HCON 121 IH 

national Monetary Fund, and other governments and 

multinational organizations for greater transparency; 

Whereas while the PRC has been opaque about the BRI, it 

has been very clear about its ambitions in the South 

China Sea in recent years; 

Whereas the PRC claims ‘‘indisputable sovereignty over the 

South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters’’; 

Whereas this assertion of sovereignty is not, in fact, ‘‘indisputable’’ to the other countries in the region; 

Whereas Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and 

the Philippines, a United States treaty ally, all dispute 

the PRC’s expansive South China Sea claims; 

Whereas the PRC continues to construct militarized artificial 

islands in the South China Sea to bolster its position; 

Whereas trillions of dollars of ship-borne commerce pass 

through the South China Sea each year, including to 

United States markets; 

Whereas the PRC continues to aggressively claim sovereignty 

over Taiwan; 

Whereas, on September 30, 2020, the PRC’s Premier, Li 

Keqiang, proclaimed that ‘‘we will . . . resolutely oppose 

and curb any ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist behaviors 

and external interference, . . . and promote . . . the reunification of the motherland’’; 

Whereas Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over Taiwan are 

belied by the fact that the Taiwanese people have independently governed their island for over 70 years; 

Whereas Taiwan is a vitally important friend and regional security partner of the United States; 


pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS
4 

•HCON 121 IH 

Whereas the Taiwan-United States bond has been solidified 

by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Taiwan Travel Act, and 

the ‘‘Six Assurances’’ first promulgated by the Reagan 

administration in 1982; 

Whereas the PRC continues to curtail the rights of the residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; 

Whereas, on June 30, 2020, the PRC’s National People’s 

Congress passed an expansive national security law to 

broadly criminalize democratic participation and protest 

in Hong Kong; 

Whereas this law and other efforts to curtail democratic participation in Hong Kong violates the PRC’s commitments 

in 1984 and 1997 to the United Kingdom to respect 

Hong Kong’s long tradition of economic and democratic 

freedoms for 50 years, beginning on July 1, 1997; 

Whereas the Beijing government’s increasingly hostile actions 

threaten the 85,000 American residents and 1,300 

United States firms operating in Hong Kong; 

Whereas, in addition to the above and other geostrategic 

threats, the PRC wields enormous influence over the 

United States economy; 

Whereas the PRC holds over $1,000,000,000,000 in United 

States Treasury bonds, more than any other foreign nation except Japan; 

Whereas in recent years the PRC has maintained a massive 

trade surplus over the United States, valued at 

$345,600,000,000 in 2019, by manipulating its currency 

and maintaining unreasonably high tariffs, among other 

tactics; 


pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS
5 

•HCON 121 IH 

Whereas the PRC routinely pressures United States companies entering its market to cede their intellectual property 

and market licensing rights; 

Whereas the PRC frequently carries out cyberattacks on 

United States companies to steal trade secrets or other 

sensitive information it cannot obtain by other means; 

Whereas cyberattacks originating from the PRC target not 

only companies, but also United States Government and 

United States defense interests, academic institutions, 

nonprofit organizations, and average citizens; and 

Whereas it is likely that the PRC has access to the personal 

data of most citizens of the United States: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 

2 concurring), That Congress— 

3 (1) recognizes that the People’s Republic of 

4 China (PRC) currently poses the greatest foreign 

5 threat to United States peace, security, and stability; 

6 (2) recognizes that the PRC, regardless of fu7 ture leadership, will likely continue to be a major 

8 rival of the United States in the coming decades, 

9 due to the enormous cumulative size and scale of its 

10 population, economy, and military capabilities; and 

11 (3) supports the Trump administration’s overall 

12 strategic approach to the PRC, grounded in prin13 cipled realism and firm-but-measured competitive 

14 engagement whenever United States national interVerDate Sep 11 2014 20:50 Oct 20, 2020 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HC121.IH HC121

pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS
6 

•HCON 121 IH 

1 ests are at stake, that has been outlined in sources 

2 including but not limited to— 

3 (A) the United States Strategic Approach 

4 to the People’s Republic of China (May 2020); 

5 (B) the National Defense Strategy of the 

6 United States of America (October 2018); 

7 (C) the National Cyber Strategy of the 

8 United States of America (September 2018); 

9 and 

10 (D) the National Security Strategy of the 

11 United States of America (December 2017). 

Æ 


pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS