Two bipartisan lawmakers are renewing calls for a national investment in the naval sector, warning that America has fallen behind and that China’s use of the world’s oceans “to pursue global supremacy” is growing exponentially.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) noted in a joint opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that Beijing, in its ambitious power grab, has seized more than a dozen islands in waters claimed by its neighbors and is hungry for more.