Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and other lawmakers said the United States needs a “maritime czar” to shore up American seapower to counter the threats posed by an ever-growing Chinese navy.
“This shipbuilding overmatch that the Chinese Communist Party is developing; it’s on the back of their commercial industry,” Mr. Waltz said, adding that China is building about 1,500 large ships of all kinds per year, including cargos and tankers, while the United States is creating less than 20 annually. “This is a massive, massive disparity,” he added.
At Monday’s event, Mr. Waltz said “it is notable” that the letter was signed by lawmakers from different congressional committees, including financial services, transportation, and armed services.
“I think first and foremost, we need a national coordinator that is empowered, a maritime czar, so to speak, to really get their circle around where the gaps are in authorities and appropriations,” Mr. Waltz said. “We’re asking the president ... to make this a presidential issue.”
‘We Must Act Now’
The lawmakers also pointed out the Chinese regime’s aggression in the South China Sea and the Houthi militants’ attack in the Red Sea as examples of the risks the United States is facing.“Our global competitors are strengthening their maritime industries, and asymmetric forces are threatening freedom of navigation and the international law of the sea,” the lawmakers wrote.
“America is—and will always be—a maritime nation. But after years of neglect, changing the trajectory of our shipbuilding and shipping industries is a task that will be measured in decades, not days, months, or years,” the lawmakers added.
“We stand at an inflection point. We must act now—before it is too late—to reinvigorate American and allied maritime power on the seas.”
The lawmakers also called on President Biden to issue a presidential determination that would designate “commercial, civil, and military shipbuilding and shipping industries, with their associated domestic infrastructure and workforces, as elements on the nation’s critical infrastructure sectors list.”
Finally, according to the letter, President Biden should develop a national strategy of “de-risking” the U.S. maritime domain from China and other maritime threats.
“So the PLA Navy has been on a historic trajectory these last 25 years. And while we are, I am confident that we would prevail in combat, it is a concerning trajectory,” Adm. Paparo said, referring to the official name of the Chinese navy—the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
“We are not overmatched. But I don’t like the pace of the trajectory,” he added.
Adm. Paparo went on to suggest that military cooperation and unnamed vehicles could counterbalance China’s naval force.
“We’re a joint force that thinks in a multi-domain mindset. And that is the kind of formation in maritime terrain. Those are forces on land that can affect events at the maritime that can shoot, move, communicate and impose costs against the naval force to augment the Navy forces at sea,” Adm. Paparo said. “And then further, the 21st-century capabilities, unmanned capabilities, from the seabed to the heavens.”
Calling communist China the United States’s “pacing challenge,” Adm. Paparo said Beijing “is our only competitor with the will and with the capability to reshape the international order to suit its autocratic preferences.”
