US Senate Democrats announced the programme to counter Communist China's global influence on Thursday, unveiling a US$350 million package of legislation focused on the restoration of diplomacy with Beijing and seeking to boost US competitiveness.

The "America LEADS Act of 2020", announced during the hearings of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would, among other things, provide new resources to the U.S. education system, and renew U.S. diplomacy with Communist China by strengthening the U.S. commitment to international allies and international agencies like the World Health Organisation.

The observers stated that the call for the restoration of the diplomacy with aggressive Beijing regime characterised it as "the softening of the U.S. strategy against growing threat to the global peace".

Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he hoped the Democrats' ideas could be combined with Republican proposals for a bipartisan plan.

"This is an American issue. This is not a partisan issue," Mr Risch told a committee hearing at which State Department officials testified about China's global influence, with one calling Beijing a "lawless bully."

The authors of the plan intended to restore an emphasis on human rights, related to issues such as protests in Hong Kong and the persecution of Uighurs in East Turkestan, officially called Xinjiang.



Military Spending to Deter Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region

The legislation focuses heavily on bolstering American research and development in science and technology, authorising $300 billion over four years for such efforts and investing another roughly $16 billion in the U.S. semiconductor industry to help the United States retain an edge over Beijing. It would also require the president to submit a plan to Congress to use the Defence Production Act to increase domestic production capabilities for semiconductor devices and require domestic sourcing for those products.

The legislation would provide $125 million in military spending over four years for the Indo-Pacific region. U.S. military officials in April called on Congress to authorise an additional $20.1 billion between 2021 and 2026 to bolster deterrence against China, in a sign that they expect tensions to flare.

The Democratic members of the Committee supported the plan.