Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes said Sunday the Biden administration appears oblivious to Chinese expansion as it creates “a series of lily pads all over the globe.”

“So what they’re doing is they’re creating a series of lily pads all over the globe, including in the South China Sea so that they can project military power.”

“And meanwhile, the question is the Biden administration acts like, ‘Oh, my god, we didn’t know anything about this.’ That’s not true. Where the hell have you been?” Nunes asked on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

The congressman compared the apparent unawareness to “Afghanistan where they said they didn’t know about the Taliban’s association with al-Qaida, and the Taliban wouldn’t take over the government of Afghanistan.” But Nunes said the situation with China is “much more dangerous because this is an existential threat to our country.”

Nunes said China has a two-fold strategy of emboldening its military while “they’re also trying to exert economic power and become the world’s reserve currency.”