ICYMI: McCaul, Dr. Arthur Herman Highlight AUKUS as Key to Countering the CCP, Maintaining High-Tech Supremacy

WASHINGTON – U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Dr. Arthur Herman, a senior fellow and director of the Quantum Alliance Initiative at Hudson Institute, penned an op-ed in National Review highlighting how AUKUS — the security pact between the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia — provides a strategic advantage against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), both at sea and in the high-tech realm. 

National Review

The U.S. Has a Game Changer in the Struggle for High-Tech Supremacy

Congressman Michael McCaul and Dr. Arthur Herman 

April 3, 2025 

In the great-power competition with the United States’ adversaries, none is more formidable than the Chinese Communist Party.

Emboldened by four years of appeasement policies, the CCP is on the march — escalating its military activities, conducting aggressive drills around Taiwan, and increasing its belligerence in the South China Sea.

The tension in the Indo-Pacific is nearing a breaking point. Given China’s unholy alliance with Russia, Iran, and North Korea — and America’s friendship with Taiwan and defense treaty with the Philippines — any surge of CCP aggression in the region could catapult the world into a snowballing conflict.

There is one key to avoiding this World War III scenario: deterrence. And as the future of warfare rapidly develops, high-tech supremacy will be the decisive key. That’s why — as President Trump has said — China’s recent DeepSeek challenge to American AI leadership serves as a wake-up call. We must commit greater focus and resources to high-tech supremacy — not only in AI, but in a range of technologies that will define military deterrence in peacetime and determine victory in a time of war.

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Instead of peace through strength, the Biden presidency brought instability and conflict through weakness. But in the midst of its abysmal foreign policy record was one bright spot: a security pact established in 2021 between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, to work together on a cluster of advanced technologies. 

AUKUS will change the game when it comes to countering the generational threat posed by China.

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To ensure the program’s success, Congress passed an initiative, led by one of us (Michael McCaul, chairman emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee), to exempt Australia and the U.K. from lengthy and burdensome licensing requirements. These requirements, while meant to protect our sensitive technology from falling into the wrong hands, also prohibited our trusted allies from using U.S. tech for our collective defense goals.

Congress was explicit: The administration “shall provide” defense articles and technology to these allies, whose export control regimes are similar to our own. But when the Biden administration removed the licensing requirements, it quickly nullified that action by releasing a list of excluded technologies. The list was so lengthy that it swallowed up the exemption. In other words, the Biden administration undermined congressional intent and re-created lengthy burdens for technology sharing with our allies, inexplicably undercutting its one true foreign policy success in the process.

The excluded-technologies list must be immediately trimmed if we want to keep up with China in the technology race that will determine the future balance of power.

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In our brave new age of great-power competition, our high-tech posture will be as important as our military force posture; in fact, one will determine the other. Just as in World War II the integration of mass production by commercial companies was the key to victory, so too will integration of advanced technologies like AI, quantum, and autonomous systems be key to deterrence — and to victory if war breaks out.

Except this time, we won’t have to rely on American industry alone for needed breakthroughs and deployments. Instead, we can work with key allies to achieve our most important national security goals — including supremacy at sea — and prevent the next world war from breaking out.

As Ronald Reagan told us, “We know only too well that conflict comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak.” For too long, the forces of freedom have been weak in the face of CCP aggression. AUKUS can change that.

Click here to read the full op-ed in National Review.

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