Western Hemisphere military commanders warn of growing Chinese threats

Leaders of U.S. military forces in the Western Hemisphere told Congress on Tuesday that Chinese activities and influence pose a growing threat to U.S. national security.

Marine Corps. Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of the Southern Command, said he is worried about the growing inroads China has made with its role in developing port facilities and space stations in South America.

“We are very concerned. I consider them all dual-use,” Gen. Donovan told a House Armed Services Committee hearing, referring to a joint civilian-military utility.

The four-star general said his forces are monitoring Chinese involvement in 23 port facilities and what he termed “space-enabling” bases throughout South America.

Gen. Donovan said the Pentagon’s national defense strategy makes clear the United States will counter “access to or influence over key terrain in the Western Hemisphere.”

“The threats in our hemisphere are real and urgent,” he said, noting China poses a particularly significant threat. “With varying degrees of influence, ownership and/or operational control, Chinese investment in critical infrastructure, key ports and port facilitates grant Beijing a foothold in the region and raise concerns of potential dual-use infrastructure that could facilitate intelligence gathering, cyber vulnerability, or logistical denial during global contingencies.”

He said Chinese space facilities can be used to monitor satellites, spy on military assets and intercept sensitive information.

Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said the hemisphere has grown more secure through the closing of the southern U.S. border and ongoing U.S. attacks on drug boats under Southern Command’s Operation Southern Spear.

“Operation Southern Spear is dismantling cartel networks before their drugs cross our border,” the Alabama Republican said.

Mr. Rogers also highlighted the threat from China expanding in the region through ports, telecommunications networks, critical minerals processing, and other strategic infrastructure.

“These investments are not benign. They are part of a deliberate strategy to expand Beijing’s influence in our hemisphere and undermine U.S. security,” he said.

Gen. Donovan defended the military strikes against drug boats as authorized under President Trump’s directive to counter narco-terrorists.

“Joint Task Force Southern Spear continues to conduct decisive operations to detect, disrupt, and dismantle narco-terrorist networks,” Gen. Donovan said, noting the traffickers are shifting to new drug transfer methods.

Gen. Donovan cited as a positive development Panama’s moves to end China’s involvement in the Panama Canal.

In the past year, the Panamanian government reduced its reliance on China as an economic and security partner while bolstering ties with the U.S., a shift that will better protect canal security, the commander testified.

One key action in Panama was a recent court ruling that barred a Chinese company from operating two strategic port facilities at either end of the canal, he said.

“However, Beijing continues to seek opportunities to shape the environment to its strategic advantage using all tools of national power, including economic engagement, strategic investments in critical minerals, and increasing military linkages,” Gen. Donovan said, noting that ensuring unfettered U.S. access to the can is Southcom’s top priority.

Further north, Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of the Northern Command, warned in his testimony to the committee about growing missile and other threats to the U.S. homeland from China.

“China’s capability to threaten North America is advancing at an alarming pace,” Gen. Guillot stated in prepared testimony.

“At the strategic level, China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal to more than 600 warheads, most deployed on weapons with sufficient range to reach targets inside the United States.”

Beijing’s military is also deploying a variety of novel strategic weapons, including missiles topped with hypersonic glide vehicles that can defeat missile defenses, and a space-based orbital bombardment system that is also difficult to track and defeat.

“Seeking deterrence and retaliatory options below the nuclear threshold, China is honing its offensive cyber capabilities and has begun to field a conventionally armed and HGV-equipped ICBM that has sufficient range to strike Alaska,” Gen. Guillot said.

China’s military leaders in the next several years will deploy weapons capable of attacking the U.S. homeland with conventionally armed sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, he said.

The missiles could be launched from China’s new Shang III-class guided missile submarines, he said.

Chinese encroachment into the Arctic is also expanding, with a record five research vessels deployed to the region in 2025. The vessels are “likely in part to support future military deployments,” the four-star general said.

Both generals also said Russia remains a threat to both areas and Gen. Guillot singled out North Korea as a homeland threat from its new and more powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Hwasong-20.

The new missile can deliver a nuclear warhead “anywhere in the United States,” and the shape of its payload suggests it can be armed with multiple reentry vehicles that would complicate U.S. missile defenses.

On Iran, Gen. Guillot said U.S. military strikes have severely degraded Tehran’s military, and its homeland-threatening ICBM development has “likely been eliminated” from the bombing of its space launch program.

“Nonetheless, Iran’s surviving leadership seems to retain some capacity to direct reprisal attacks on the homeland through asymmetric means, like the recent cyberattacks on a U.S. medical tech company by an Iran-linked hacker group,” Gen. Guillot said.

With weakened military capabilities, Iran’s “most viable threat vector” against the U.S. remains the use of terrorists who could be inspired to conduct attacks on behalf of Iran, he said.

Over the past year, the American homeland has become increasingly threatened by an increased alignment of China and Russia, which has included combined air and maritime operations near Alaska.

“While none of the relationships among our principal adversaries constitutes a formal military alliance, their shared perception of the United States as a threat to their core security interests could form the foundation of a wartime partnership, complicating U.S. military planning and advancing each adversary’s ability to threaten the homeland,” Gen. Guillot said.

On Chinese relations with Brazil, Gen. Donovan said Beijing hosted a joint military exercise last year with Brazil called Exercise Formosa that the U.S. declined to join.

However, this year the Brazilians will hold the drills without China and the U.S. military will take part, he said.

Joseph H. Humire, acting assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, told the committee that Panama in the past year also withdrew from Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, diversified its use of Chinese contractors and expelled China-based CK Hutchison from controlling ports at the Pacific and Atlantic openings of the Canal.

“Today, U.S. subsidiaries operate these ports, representing a major victory for unfettered U.S. commerce and a strategic win for the United States,” Mr. Humire said.

On Mr. Trump’s planned Golden Dome missile defense system, Gen. Guillot said space-based interceptors that can shoot down missiles en route to targets are both feasible and “well on the way” to development.

Northern Command also is working to counter threats to military bases from unmanned aerial vehicles, Gen. Guillot said.

For counter-UAV operations, Northcom has acquired a system called Flyaway Kit or FAK and will purchase additional systems this spring.

The system can detect, track and counter UAV threats and was used during the early phase of military operations against Iran, he said.

“A deployed FAK successfully detected and defeated sUAS operating over a strategic U.S. installation,” Gen. Guillot said.