(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congreswoman Ashley Hinson says it’s critical that the U.S. support Taiwan with military hardware as China threatens the independently-governed island. Taiwan produces 60% of the world’s supply of computer chips, while about 14% are made in the United States.

“It’ll take a long time to rehome many of those things here to the United States,” Hinson said early this afternoon, “so it is critically important that we protect Taiwan and our interests there.”

Hinson, a Republican from Marion, made her comments during a foreign policy forum in Cedar Rapids. Hinson is a member of the House Select Committee on China and the committee is hosting a field hearing in Dysart later today about China’s theft of agricultural technology.

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, on left, hosts Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher and Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson at The Bastion Institute event today in Cedar Rapids.

“This is a huge threat and I think we’ve kind of been asleep at the wheel for decades in how we’ve handled China,” Hinsaon said at The Bastion Institute forum. “We’ve allowed them into the World Trade Organization. They continue steal our intellectual property…down to our seeds.”

Hinson cites the 2013 arrest of seven Chinese nationals accused of digging up seeds from Iowa farms and sending them back to China. One of the men, caught digging into an Iowa corn field in 2011, pleaded guilty to stealing seeds produced by Monsanto, Dupont Pioneer and LG Seeds.