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Director of National Intelligence calls China "National Security Threat No. 1"

By franzwalkerdw // 2020-12-10

China poses the greatest national security threat to the United States, stated the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Thursday, Dec. 3. DNI John Ratcliffe made this warning in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where he argued that "the intelligence is clear" when it came to China. "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," Ratcliffe writes in the piece. He wanted that the country was engaged in economic espionage and was looking to "rob, replicate and replace" the intellectual property of American firms in the hopes of replacing them in the global marketplace.

Ratcliffe calls China a "once-in-a-generation" challenge

In his op-ed, Ratcliffe warns that China is gearing up for an indefinite stretch of strife with the United States. As such, he believes that it's time for the U.S. to start getting prepared in return. "Beijing is preparing for an open-ended period of confrontation with the U.S. Washington should also be prepared," he wrote. "Leaders must work across partisan divides to understand the threat, speak about it openly, and take action to address it." He called that challenge posed by Beijing a "once-in-a-generation challenge. " He said that Americans have always risen up to face such challenges in the past, from fascism and 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," he adds. "The intelligence is clear. Our response must be as well." Ratcliffe's op-ed is just one in a series of efforts from the Trump administration to raise awareness about China's crusade to replace the U.S. as the world's preeminent superpower. During a recent virtual summit hosted by the Aspen Institute, John Demers, who runs the Department of Justice's National Security Division, stated that at least 1,000 researchers had left the country since the DOJ launched multiple criminal cases against several suspected Chinese operatives for espionage. "Only the Chinese have the resources and ability and will," said Demers of the foreign influence activity that U.S. intelligence has seen in recent years.

China fires back, but US agencies determined to fight Chinese threat

In response to these efforts, the Chinese government said that the Trump administration was engaged in "an escalation of political suppression," and warned that such actions would damage America's global image. But U.S. authorities are not deterred. Reports surfaced last week that the Trump administration plans to add the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. to its group of companies blacklisted for having ties to the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The move comes from the Department of Defense, which is also moving to designate a number of other companies, including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. as being owned or controlled by China's military. In addition, the Trump administration also announced last week that it would block cotton imports from a company in China's Xinjiang region. The latter is where the communist party has detained an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since 2016. The communist party continues to detain large numbers of these ethnic minorities in internment camps and prisons where they are subjected to physical abuse and ideological discipline, the latter of which sees them forced to denounce their religion and language. With the move, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will no longer accept shipments of cotton and cotton products from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps due to indications that they were made with slave labor. Follow CommunistChina.news for more on how China is attempting to undermine the U.S. and the rest of the world. Sources include: WSJ.com NYPost.com

China national security spying espionage slavery communism john ratcliffe DNI Xinjiang CCP Chinese Communist Party uyghurs Director of National Intelligence