Rep. Tom Reed is continuing to raise concerns over the growing power of China and how the country is manipulating the supply chain to weaken western democracy.

During Reed’s weekly conference call Wednesday with media from the 23rd Congressional District, he expressed concern about China’s involvement with Russia.

“In February of 2022, China and Russia issued a 5,000-word statement jointly, which to me clearly articulated in writing, their mission together to re-establish the world order and for China’s position as they have said, to put America in checkmate in regards to the issues we face with the supply chain, with economic issues, currency issues, military issues and the other matters,” he said.

Over the last six months, Reed, R-Corning, believes China has been using its position, under the guise of COVID, to further strangle the supply chain line coming into America.

“When you see the chain link fences around housing facilities, etc. where they try to say this is being done to mitigate COVID exposures, may actually be being done, in my opinion, to limit the labor supply in Shanghi, which is one the largest sources of shipping the world of supplies coming out of China,” he said.

Reed believes by hampering the distribution in the shipping arena, by removing the labor, China will once again slow the supply chain, which will lead to further inflation and shortages in critical supplies. He believes these shortages could hurt technological communications and even impact the military’s supply chain.

“That in America should caution all of us, should awaken all of us to the China threat, and by putting all of our eggs in one basket we have potentially exposed ourselves to a significant threat that China represents to the security long-term, of America,” he said.

Reed believes that the U.S. needs to work with its allies to create products so that we are no longer dependent upon China for assets including food and energy.

“This is years in the making and it’s going to take years to overcome and my hope is that one of the solutions to this problem would be to bring further democracy to the people of China, to send a message that the authoritarian way of governing is not the future,” he said.