The disappointing Senate China bill

But the devil is always in the details, especially in such a sprawling, cobbled-together bill. Conservatives complained that Endless Frontier disbursed too much money to the NSF, which has little experience with the technologies in question and even less of an ability to prevent the Party’s theft of intellectual property developed with the help of NSF grants. As a result of the concern, the funding was pared down a significant amount — to $81 billion. Still, the security problem persisted: With Beijing engaged in an aggressive military-civil fusion program designed to leverage intellectual-property theft for its military buildup, funding a significant R&D push without adequate safeguards is foolish and risky. Meanwhile, the Strategic Competition Act portion of the since-consolidated bill includes some concrete measures to combat Uyghur forced labor and apply a national-security investment-review process to foreign gifts destined for universities. It did not, however, do much else of consequence besides include language for numerous sense-of-Congress statements. In fact, well over 100 sections of the consolidated bill are symbolic or merely create new reporting requirements.