By Gayle Trotter
Monday morning, before most Americans had finished their breakfast, a Chinese nuclear submarine surfaced in the Pacific and fired a ballistic missile carrying a dummy warhead. This was Beijing's first test of its kind since 2024. Japan scrambled to track falling debris. Australia and New Zealand issued formal protests. This was a message, sent deliberately, to an American public still debating whether the China threat is real.
It is real. And it didn't start Monday.
Days earlier, the Pentagon's annual report on the People's Liberation Army landed with a warning too many in Washington will ignore: Beijing is on pace to field nine aircraft carriers by 2035, its nuclear arsenal is projected to blow past 1,000 warheads by 2030, and Xi Jinping has directed his military to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027. The report also detailed something Americans should find chilling closer to home — the Volt Typhoon cyber intrusions that burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure, to be ready, in a crisis, to shut off our own lights, water, and pipelines.
Add to that the reporting this month that Chinese personnel have been training Russian forces in radiological, biological, and chemical warfare on the battlefield in Ukraine, and the picture is unmistakable. Beijing and Moscow are partners. Exchanging real operational lessons, in real time, against a backdrop of the worst land war in Europe since 1945.
When I served as an official with the Trump administration, I saw the aftermath of threats that metastasize when warning signs sat too long without a real response. Beijing is moving on every front — military, cyber, industrial — and Congress is right to want tools that match that scale. The AI competition is no exception: whoever's technology the world builds on will hold the advantage for a generation. That's precisely why it matters that the tools we pass actually work.
RELATED: Pentagon Cuts Big Tech AI Deals - and the Future of War Just Changed
The Chinese Robots Are Already Here - Congress Is Finally Responding
Right now, a coalition on Capitol Hill is pushing to fold half a dozen AI chip export bills into next year's defense bill, betting that bundling them together is the surest way to get something signed into law. That instinct is right. Beijing isn't waiting around, and neither should we. But bundling works only if every bill in the package actually holds up — not just the ones with the toughest-sounding titles.
One bill moving through the Senate right now, the Remote Access Security Act, is a good test case.
The problem it claims to fix is real — Beijing finding backdoor ways around our chip export bans. But RASA goes way further than that. It doesn't just target chips or AI — it's written so broadly that it could sweep up huge swaths of ordinary cloud business with allies like the UK and Germany, not just China. The result is American companies getting told to walk away from big chunks of the world market.
And that's exactly the kind of own-goal China wants. Wall off American cloud and AI companies from the rest of the world, and you clear the field for Huawei and other Chinese providers to take those customers.
Winning the AI race requires us to build the best chips. But it’s also about whose technology the rest of the world runs on. RASA doesn't protect that lead. It hands it away.
The lesson from this week's missile test is an urgent one. But more bills with "China" in the title is not enough. We need the bills we pass to address the actual problem — chip smuggling, cyber intrusions into infrastructure, technology transfer to the PLA — not broad grants of regulatory discretion that outlast this threat and this administration alike.
Beijing is not waiting for Congress to get its act together. It is testing missiles, training alongside Russian forces, and building the capacity to take Taiwan by force. American resolve has to be matched by American precision. Anything less is a misguided distraction – and those types of empty gestures have never stopped a submarine.
Gayle Trotter (@GayleTrotter) is an attorney and conservative commentator. She is a former Special Counsel to Federal Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director Dan Bongino and hosts The Gayle Trotter Show: RIGHT in DC podcast.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy RedState's conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member