Expanding U.S. Naval Repair Overseas, New Icebreaker Fleet Key to Competing with China, Says Panel

Looking to shipyards in Japan and Korea to repair Navy ships and possibly build ships for U.S. use as the recent icebreaker agreement calls for could meet the “scope and breadth of the Chinese threat,” a key congressional chairman and a Trump administration transition official proposed Saturday. “We have to look at like-minded allies,” Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, in deterring Beijing. Robert Wilkie, a former Pentagon personnel chief who is working on the transition, said, “we probably have 10 shipyards working” in the United States now. “Absolutely, we should [have] in shipyards