The 2025 US-China Economic And Security Review Commission Report: Findings And Recommendations

Quick Overview

The 2025 US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Report, presented by Chairman Randy Shriver and Vice Chair Mike Kiken, emphasizes the need for fundamental reorganization of U.S. economic statecraft tools, particularly integrating export control capabilities into the intelligence community, alongside key security recommendations concerning Taiwan deterrence, posture diversification, and immediate attention to biotechnology competition where China demonstrates systemic advantages.

Key Points: The Commission's number one recommendation focuses on economic statecraft, urging that the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) be made an element of the intelligence community and that export control authority across the Executive Branch achieve unity of command, similar to the post-9/11 sanctions reform. A key security recommendation demands the administration prove its capacity to resist force in a Taiwan contingency, requiring the Indo-Pacific Command to present its plan and identify gaps to Congress as mandated by the Taiwan Relations Act. The Commission proposed that Taiwan contribute to a fund supporting U.S. posture diversification and dispersal initiatives in the Indo-Pacific, specifically in locations like the Philippines and the Japanese southwest island chain, to counter Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environments. Biotechnology is identified as a strategic domain where China is aggressively pursuing system-level advantages, prompting a recommendation for a biometrology lab at NIST to establish foundational measurement standards for the bioeconomy. The report highlights that the U.S. is losing the competition in foundational technology areas like biotechnology, where China employs an 'all of nation approach' incentivizing careers and executing across the full stack, leading to a prediction that the U.S. is 'slow to wake up'. Commissioners noted the necessity of reconstituting the federal workforce, especially young, talented professionals, whose expertise was lost due to probationary staff reductions, which hinders the operationalization of new economic statecraft tools. The commissioners observed that Xi Jinping's purges of the Central Military Commission suggest a prioritization of unquestioned loyalty over professionalism, indicating anxiety about the PLA developing independent power bases.