News flash to politicians and media: China is preparing for war. All-out kinetic, military war. The communist regime has already been engaged in what it calls “Unrestricted Warfare” — economic, social, and political offensives, espionage, propaganda, technological theft, cyberattacks, disinformation, critical infrastructure attacks, and more — in other words, all-out asymmetric warfare against the United States and the West. A bipartisan group of congressmen has sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick a letter urging the Trump administration to close critical gaps in U.S. export controls over semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) and more vigorously engage our allies to adopt similar restrictions on those technologies that threaten their and our security. That would seem to be a no-brainer since China’s phenomenal military expansion has been (and continues to be) built with U.S. technology.
China’s Massive Military Buildup
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are dead serious. China’s September 3, 2025 “Victory Day” military parade in Tiananmen Square was the largest military display in CCP history and showcased a broad array of new advanced weapons systems: ICBMs, hypersonic anti-ship missiles, satellite hunter missiles, fighter jets, fourth-generation battle tanks, stealth attack drones, underwater attack drones, robotic wolves, and much more. (See full video of the parade here.)
It is no secret that Xi Jinping and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been on a rapid, massive armament modernization and buildup for more than a decade. This has been especially notable regarding China’s navy, which now, in terms of quantity, is the largest in the world. (In 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that China’s naval fleet numbered 332 vessels, compared to America’s 291). All of these advances are dependent on research and development (R&D), technology, materials, processes, education, and training provided by, or aided by, U.S. corporations and the U.S. government.
Allowing China to Leapfrog Us
In response to the Chinese buildup, President Donald Trump has called for an enormous military budget of $1.5 trillion for 2027, an increase of 50 percent over the $1 trillion 2025 budget. That includes a huge shipbuilding program and the launch of his “Golden Dome” missile defense system.
But if we continue providing Beijing with the cutting-edge technology that allows China to leapfrog over our latest weapons systems, we are trapping ourselves on a deadly treadmill that guarantees we will bankrupt America while giving the CCP eventual military dominance and global hegemony. We could spend $2 trillion, $3 trillion, or $4 trillion on new razzle-dazzle weapons systems, all to no avail if we then turn around and provide China with the technology to defeat those systems, as we have been doing for years. In 2021, TNA published a three-part article series on America’s suicidal technology transfers to China: China’s Tech War, China’s Chip Foundries Still Dependent on Foreign Tech Transfers, and China’s Brain: Made in USA. The evidence is crystal clear: Without the continuous treasonous transfers of American technology and know-how, Xi Jinping’s jaw-dropping hi-tech weapons systems would not exist. But the madness and treason continue.
Congressional Letter
On February 9, 2026, Representative Brian J. Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Representative John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, sent a letter to Rubio and Lutnick “to express our strong bipartisan support for robust export controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) and to urge the State Department to urgently work to close the remaining critical gaps in our control regime through vigorous engagement with our allies.”
What are those critical gaps? For one, exports on SME, for example, apply only to “certain specified entities in China, rather than on a countrywide basis.” So, if one Chinese company gets blocked, there are plenty of others that are not blocked, allowing them to acquire the restricted technology.
The letter continues:
Export controls on SME represent one of America’s most significant points of leverage in our strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China. These tools are essential not only for producing the advanced AI chips that will shape the future of both economic and military power, but also for manufacturing the legacy chips that go into PLA weapons systems and intelligence platforms. Maintaining restrictions on this equipment is critical to U.S. national security….
Despite meaningful progress, however, critical gaps persist in our export control regime. Of particular concern, certain foreign-produced chokepoint SME is controlled only for certain specified entities in China, rather than on a countrywide basis. This matters because once equipment crosses the border into China, the U.S. government has extremely limited ability to enforce end-use and end-user restrictions. Verification visits require advance permission from PRC authorities, can take weeks or months to arrange, and are conducted under escort by PRC security personnel. Entity-specific controls, while valuable, cannot substitute for countrywide restrictions on the most critical chokepoint tools….
Each chokepoint tool that enters China represents a permanent loss of American leverage. Additionally, China is working to build domestic SME by exploiting access to U.S. and allied subcomponents required to produce tools, such as electrostatic chucks. Left unchecked, China could render U.S. and allied export controls irrelevant by replacing foreign chipmaking tools entirely….
The window to secure America’s semiconductor advantage is narrowing. We request a briefing within the next month on the Administration’s strategy for securing allied cooperation on countrywide controls on chokepoint semiconductor manufacturing equipment and components and the timeline for achieving this goal….
In addition to Chairmen Mast and Moolenaar, the bipartisan letter was signed by Representatives Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), and Johnny Olszewski (D-Md.).
The fact that the above-listed Democrats have joined in this commonsense appeal is encouraging. “But,” as the letter states, “time is not on our side.” Plugging the export controls is of the utmost urgency.
Saving China From Self-destruction
Last October, the House Select Committee on the CCP published a chilling report: Selling the Forges of the Future: How the CCP Gets its Key Equipment for Making Semiconductors from U.S., Dutch, and Japanese Companies. It is but one of the myriad revelations documenting the unbroken chain of betrayals that repeatedly have saved communist China from its own self-destruction and transformed it into a global menace. In our 2023 article Enemy Within the Gates, we provide a condensed history of those betrayals and a warning about the dire threat these continued betrayals pose to freedom and our very existence.
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