Warner calls for cyber strategy against China

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Monday called for a “comprehensive strategy” in dealing with China, saying the Trump administration should be less “erratic and incoherent” in its approach to Chinese threats in cyberspace and other areas.

“The president’s insistence on framing this as a conflict between our two countries has resulted in little tangible gain,” Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “We cannot afford to frame this strategic challenge in simplistic, Cold War terms — dividing the world in two and fighting for a bigger half.”

Warner argued that the administration needs to step up and “defend against China’s bad behavior.”

“We need a comprehensive strategy to defend against China’s bad behavior; to compete with China in the 21st century; and to strengthen the international order it seeks to upend,” he added.

Warner said confronting Chinese efforts to dominate fields such as telecommunications, science and technology and the military was the “great foreign policy challenge of our time.”

Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property has been a focal point of Trump’s year-plus trade war with China. The issue also found its way into the Democratic presidential primary, with candidates raising their concerns during the debate in Houston earlier this month.