As Director of National Intelligence, I
am entrusted with access to more intelligence than any member of the U.S.
government other than the president. I oversee the intelligence agencies, and
my office produces the President’s Daily Brief detailing the threats facing the
country. If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this
unique vantage point, it is that the People’s Republic of China poses the
greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and
freedom world-wide since World War II.
The intelligence is clear: Beijing
intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically,
militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and
prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the
Chinese Communist Party.
I call its approach of economic
espionage “rob, replicate and replace.” China robs U.S. companies of their
intellectual property, replicates the technology, and then replaces the U.S.
firms in the global marketplace.
Take Sinovel. In 2018 a federal jury
found the Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer guilty of stealing trade secrets
from American Superconductor. Penalties were imposed but the damage was done.
The theft resulted in the U.S. company losing more than $1 billion in
shareholder value and cutting 700 jobs. Today Sinovel sells wind turbines
world-wide as if it built a legitimate business through ingenuity and hard work
rather than theft.
The FBI frequently arrests Chinese
nationals for stealing research-and-development secrets. Until the head of
Harvard’s Chemistry Department was arrested earlier this year, China was
allegedly paying him $50,000 a month as part of a plan to attract top
scientists and reward them for stealing information. The professor has pleaded
not guilty to making false statements to U.S. authorities. Three scientists
were ousted in 2019 from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston over concerns
about China’s theft of cancer research. The U.S. government estimates that
China’s intellectual-property theft costs America as much as $500 billion a
year, or between $4,000 and $6,000 per U.S. household.
China also steals sensitive U.S.
defense technology to fuel President Xi Jinping’s aggressive plan to make China
the world’s foremost military power. U.S. intelligence shows that China has
even conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope
of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities. There are no
ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.
China is also developing world-class
capabilities in emerging technologies. Its intelligence services use their
access to tech firms such as Huawei to enable malicious activities, including
the introduction of vulnerabilities into software and equipment. Huawei and
other Chinese firms deny this, but China’s efforts to dominate 5G
telecommunications will only increase Beijing’s opportunities to collect
intelligence, disrupt communications and threaten user privacy world-wide. I
have personally told U.S. allies that using such Chinese-owned technology will
severely limit America’s ability to share vital intelligence with them.
China already suppresses U.S. web
content that threatens the Communist Party’s ideological control, and it is
developing offensive cyber capabilities against the U.S. homeland. This year
China engaged in a massive influence campaign that included targeting several
dozen members of Congress and congressional aides.
Consider this scenario: A Chinese-owned
manufacturing facility in the U.S. employs several thousand Americans. One day,
the plant’s union leader is approached by a representative of the Chinese firm.
The businessman explains that the local congresswoman is taking a hard-line
position on legislation that runs counter to Beijing’s interests—even though it
has nothing to do with the industry the company is involved in—and says the
union leader must urge her to shift positions or the plant and all its jobs
will soon be gone.
The union leader contacts his
congresswoman and indicates that his members won’t support her re-election
without a change in position. He tells himself he’s protecting his members, but
in that moment he’s doing China’s bidding, and the congresswoman is being
influenced by China, whether she realizes it or not.
Our intelligence shows that Beijing
regularly directs this type of influence operation in the U.S. I briefed the
House and Senate Intelligence committees that China is targeting members of
Congress with six times the frequency of Russia and 12 times the frequency of
Iran.
To address these threats and more, I
have shifted resources inside the $85 billion annual intelligence budget to
increase the focus on China. This shift must continue to ensure U.S.
intelligence has the resources it needs to give policy makers unvarnished
insights into China’s intentions and activities.
Within intelligence agencies, a healthy
debate and shift in thinking is already under way. For the talented
intelligence analysts and operators who came up during the Cold War, the Soviet
Union and Russia have always been the focus. For others who rose through the
ranks at the turn of this century, counterterrorism has been top of mind. But
today we must look with clear eyes at the facts in front of us, which make
plain that China should be America’s primary national security focus going
forward.
Other nations must understand this is
true for them as well. The world is being presented a choice between two wholly
incompatible ideologies. China’s leaders seek to subordinate the rights of the
individual to the will of the Communist Party. They exert government control
over companies and subvert the privacy and freedom of their citizens with an
authoritarian surveillance state.
We shouldn’t assume that Beijing’s
efforts to drag the world back into the dark will fail just because the forces
of good have triumphed before in modern times. China believes that a global
order without it at the top is a historical aberration. It aims to change that
and reverse the spread of liberty around the world.
Beijing is preparing for an open-ended
period of confrontation with the U.S. Washington should also be prepared.
Leaders must work across partisan divides to understand the threat, speak about
it openly, and take action to address it.
This is our once-in-a-generation
challenge. Americans have always risen to the moment, from defeating the
scourge of fascism to bringing down the Iron Curtain. This generation will be
judged by its response to China’s effort to reshape the world in its own image
and replace America as the dominant superpower. The intelligence is clear. Our
response must be as well.