China poses the greatest long-term challenge to the United States, Senate Intelligence Chair Mark Warner and co-Chair Marco Rubio agree ahead of the Senate's annual hearing on worldwide threats, scheduled for Monday.
"One of the things that Sen. Rubio and I have done on a bipartisan basis is try to go industry by industry in America and warn them of the potential theft of intellectual property, [of] $500 billion a year, Warner, D-Va., said during an extensive interview airing Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"The fact that China is investing in quantum computing, in bioengineering, and the activities China is taking, we need to compete against that."
Warner said the United States is ahead on artificial intelligence, despite fears a few years ago that China would be coming out ahead.
"The vast majority of innovation is still taking place in this country," he said. "If you look at all of the major AI companies, they're virtually all American. I don't underestimate China, but we have an innovative economy that benefits us.
"The Chinese regime is reluctant to allow large language models to be used by their population because, frankly, they might find the truth about what the regime has done back to Tiananmen Square in 1989."
Rubio, R-Fla., said that he does not know if a timeframe can be described.
"We're clearly, I think, ahead simply because they steal our stuff," Rubio said. "We're not interested in stealing their stuff. I think the bigger concern is how it would be utilized."
Meanwhile, Rubio voted against the national security supplemental bill that would have sent $5 billion to the Indo-Pacific regions and helped Taiwan against China, but he said in Sunday's interview that he does not think the money should wait.
"I just don't think it should be held hostage on the issue of whether or not we will deal with our border," he said.
Warner agreed with Rubio that "the border is a mess."
"I respectfully believe that what Sen. James Lankford put forward was as tough a border deal as could get passed in this Congress and next Congress unless there is an 80-member shift one way or the other in either political party," said Warner. "We need to get the money to humanitarian and for Israel, but I think the issue that it is most wrapped around is if we walk away from the people of Ukraine."
And if the United States doesn't stand by Ukraine, he said, "the rest of the world should never trust us again."
But Rubio said that the United States must tell Americans that the priority is in dealing with its own issues first.
"We have a migrant wave that began in mid-January of 2021 because people calculated that if they got here, they were going to be able to stay," Rubio said, adding that "85 to 90% of them were right and it's drawing more people to come here and it's unsustainable."
Warner also discussed the dangers of TikTok, including saying that it was a "mixed message" for President Joe Biden's campaign to open an account.
"The Biden administration supported my earlier bipartisan legislation that we would lead to a path of potentially banning TikTok because I believe that TikTok, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, collects data and, as a news source, literally laughs at young people in America who get a lot of their news from [it]," said Warner.