Whereas the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a population of approximately 1,400,000,000, compared to the United States population of approximately 330,000,000; Whereas the PRC’s economy is the second largest in the world, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), behind only the United States; Whereas the PRC’s GDP will likely surpass United States GDP in the coming decades; Whereas the PRC has the largest active duty military in the world; Whereas the PRC has committed to aggressively modernizing its military capabilities in the coming decades; Whereas the PRC possesses nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles; Whereas the PRC does not share the democratic or free market values of the United States; Whereas Xi Jinping has been the de facto paramount leader of the PRC since November 2012, when he attained the positions of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission; Whereas Xi became the head of state of the PRC in March 2013, with a title usually labeled President in Western sources; Whereas President Xi has decisively broken with the foreign policy restraint practiced by his immediate predecessors; Whereas President Xi declared in a 2018 speech before the National People’s Congress that the PRC must ride on the mighty east wind of the new era, charge forward with a full tank and steadily steer the wheel with full power ; Whereas the PRC has neoimperial ambitions to spread its power throughout the world; Whereas the PRC launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, to offer financing for transportation and energy infrastructure projects in dozens of countries; Whereas many of the BRI-participating countries are poor, unstable, or potentially vulnerable to debt dependence on Beijing; Whereas the United States has very sensitive strategic relationships with many BRI-participating countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan