By Patricia Zengerle, Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Tuesday that Washington must do more to counter Chinese actions, including its strategy for creating military bases and its pursuit of rare-earth minerals in Africa.
Campbell told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that competition with China was the "defining geopolitical challenge confronting modern American diplomacy" and said the U.S. Navy and Air Force needed to step up their games in the Indo-Pacific.
"We need to do more, and we have to contest Chinese actions, not only in terms of their forward basing strategy, but their desire to go after Africa's rare earths that will be critical for our industrial and technological capabilities," Campbell said.
Campbell said the difference in shipbuilding between China and the U.S. was "deeply concerning."
"We have to do better in this arena, or we will not be the great naval power that we need to be for the 21st century," he said.
Campbell, who has long advocated pivoting U.S. power to the Indo-Pacific, said the 20-year U.S. engagement in the Middle East was largely about ground forces and "we made all the appropriate investments, we modernized, we innovated."
"Now is the Navy and the Air Force's time. They have to step up. They have to invest more. They have to be more innovative," he said.
"They have to be more intrepid, and they've got to understand that the Indo-Pacific arena requires the most capable naval and advanced long-range air capabilities that the United States has ever needed before, and that's where we have to put our focus."
Rare earths are vital for high-tech applications, including defense equipment, and for U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to electrify the auto market to fight climate change.
The U.S. is eager to secure sources beyond China, which in 2022 accounted for more than 70% of world rare-earth production.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons noted that the U.S. did not have an ambassador in the small African country of Eswatini, one of the few remaining countries that recognizes Taiwan rather than Beijing diplomatically.
"The place that really the Chinese are taking it to us is in international organizations," Campbell said.
"We have to be able to contest there. I don't like going to a country in which we sit down with the leader and we don't have an ambassador there; hasn't been there for a couple years ... I do believe we should put these folks on the field."