Rep. Himes: China is a strategic challenge; protect U.S. innovation and immigration

Representative Jim Himes told a gathered audience that the United States faces a new strategic era in which China is a near-peer competitor and technological leadership is central to national security.

Himes listed three pillars that sustain U.S. innovation: venture capital, immigration and research universities. "Number 1, our capital markets. Venture capital, second to none," he said, adding that skilled immigrants and elite university research are critical to maintaining an edge. "Immigration," he said, repeatedly, as a core advantage in producing founders and technical talent.

Turning to technological threats, Himes warned that advances in quantum computing and biosynthesis could undermine current security assumptions: a cryptographically capable quantum computer would render much encryption vulnerable, and biosynthesis could enable engineered pathogens with targeted effects. "We can beat everybody to artificial intelligence," he said, framing competitiveness as both an economic and security imperative.

Himes linked those concerns to domestic policy choices: reductions in research funding, restrictive immigration policy and weakening capital markets could, in his view, accelerate relative decline. He pressed for policies that keep university R&D and immigration pathways robust while acknowledging political and fiscal constraints.