Debt Threat

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, today proposed a fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill including a provision that, if enacted, would require the defense secretary -- in consultation with the director of national intelligence -- to “carry out an assessment of the national security risks posed to the United States and United States allies as a result of the federal debt liability owned to China and the amount of interested determined to have been paid by the United States to China.”

In addition, the provision would direct the Congressional Budget Office to “determine and make public” how much the United States has paid China in interest over the past five years for funds Beijing has lend the U.S. government.

Early last year, two senior Chinese military officers -- Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao -- suggested dumping U.S. government bonds to retaliate against Washington's offer to sell Taiwan $6.7 billion in new weaponry, according to a Feb. 10 Reuters report.

In February, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, issued a new National Military Strategy that called the growing national debt a “significant security risk.”

Last week, the House Armed Services emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee, in its mark of the Pentagon's fiscal year 2012 authorization bill, directed the Pentagon to prepare a study on economic warfare threats.