DNI John Ratcliffe: Trump’s intelligence chief warns China is biggest threat to US since WWII

Ratcliffe took on a more urgent tone on Thursday than in previous comments, pointing out that he and other senior national security officials in the Trump administration are looking to put a marker on China in their final days on the job.

“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. So must our response,” he said. writes Ratcliffe.

“Beijing is preparing for an open period of confrontation with the United States. Washington must also be prepared. Leaders must work across partisan divisions to understand the threat, speak openly about it and take action to address it,” a- he added.

A senior national security official told CNN the op-ed was part of a larger, administration-wide Chinese campaign before President-elect Joe Biden was sworn in.

The effort is driven, in part, by a desire to make it harder for the Biden administration to unwind current policies, but also a belief that these warnings about China will prove true in the future, the official said.

Tough on China but not like Trump?

Sources familiar with Biden’s foreign policy plans say the president-elect is well aware of Beijing’s challenge, but believes Trump’s approach – particularly to act without consulting his allies – has undermined the ultimate goal of competing with China.

Top Democrats in Congress have also urged members of Team Biden, including his pick to replace Ratcliffe as DNI, to take a tough stance on China, but take a different approach than the Trump administration. .

“I urged the new Biden administration to be tough on China, but in a much smarter and more multilateral way than the Trump administration was, so that American workers are not left behind and The United States is leading in critical industries like semiconductors, quantum computing and clean energy, ”Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer said earlier this week after meeting with Pick. Biden for DNI Avril Haines.

Biden said there were areas in which it was in the United States’ best interests to work with China, including on climate change and North Korea, but his advisers stress he will work closely. with his allies to present a united front on issues such as technology, including Huawei and 5G, intellectual property theft and China’s expansion into Asian waters and its measures to crush democracy in Hong Kong.

It remains to be seen how Biden will treat China, but recent warnings from outgoing Trump officials could increase the pressure on him to prioritize Beijing’s accountability, or at least complicate the math on some issues.

For example, Ratcliffe argued Thursday that the time to convince the allies to voluntarily join the United States in presenting a united front on 5G may have passed and suggested the situation demanded that the administration Trump takes a more forceful approach.

“China’s efforts to dominate 5G telecommunications will only increase Beijing’s opportunities to collect intelligence, disrupt communications, and threaten the privacy of users around the world. I have personally told US allies that the use of this Chinese-owned technology would severely limit America’s ability to share vital information with them, “he said.

“The world is offered a choice between two totally incompatible ideologies. The Chinese leadership seeks to subordinate the rights of the individual to the will of the Communist Party. They exercise government control over businesses and subvert the privacy and freedom of their citizens with an authoritarian state surveillance regime, ”he added.

Ratcliffe’s claim that China has become increasingly aggressive in targeting US lawmakers as it seeks to influence US policy from within could also hamper the Biden administration’s diplomatic cooperation prospects with Beijing. in other areas.

Specifically, Ratcliffe said Thursday that the Chinese government “had embarked on a massive influence campaign targeting several dozen members of Congress and congressional assistants” over the past year – arguing that efforts to Beijing eclipsed those of other foreign adversaries and rivals, including Russia.

While the precise details of this influence campaign remain highly confidential, a senior national security official told CNN that the Chinese government used various tactics, including attempted bribery and blackmail.

“Our intelligence shows that Beijing regularly conducts this type of influence operation in the United States. I have informed 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, “Ratcliffe wrote in Thursday’s Editorial.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has also “redirected” its influence efforts with officials in the new Biden administration and those around them, said Bill Evanina, a senior US counterintelligence official, on Wednesday.

Evanina, the director of the US National Counterintelligence and Security Center, called the efforts “diplomatic influence more or on steroids,” saying the change was expected.

“We start to see this game [out] across the country, not just to the people who are in the new administrator, but to those around those people in the new (administration), ”Evanina said during her conversation about China at the Aspen Cyber ​​Summit. The point is to make sure that these in the new administration, “know what it looks like, what it looks like, what it looks like when you see it”.

Growing tensions between Washington and Beijing

Other agencies within the Trump administration have also taken recent steps that will escalate tensions between Washington and Beijing.

The State Department is imposing new restrictions on travel visas to the United States for members of the Chinese Communist Party, a State Department spokesperson confirmed Thursday.

Under the new rules, travel visas for CCP members and their immediate family members will be increased from 10 years to one month and will be single-entry.

The United States is also closely monitoring the rise of Chinese military activity around Taiwan, another potential flashpoint that could pose problems for the Biden administration if it continues to escalate.

“We are monitoring very closely and we would be prepared for anything, including a serious miscalculation on the part of the PRC,” a senior administration official told CNN. “We are definitely watching them.”

“Sooner or later they are ready to push things to a boiling point above Taiwan as they have done in Hong Kong and on the border with India. It is happening,” the official added.

But at the same time, Biden and Harris can only watch from the sidelines until they are sworn in and will inherit the fallout from the actions the Trump administration will take by inauguration day.