Communist China is engaged in a decades-long attempt to expand its terrestrial and maritime claims without triggering an overt war, Congress has heard.
Speaking during an Oct. 7 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said that multiple successive U.S. administrations had failed to counter China’s program of expansion because the regime’s actions fell below the threshold of international military conflict.
“China’s trying to change the facts on the ground in the Indo-Pacific just as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin did with Crimea in 2014,” Coons said….