WASHINGTON – China is carrying out a well-orchestrated strategy to replaceUnited States as a global power, top American lawmakers and spymaster saidtoday. “As such, the United States is pulling out all of its elements ofintelligence gathering to provide a very very deep dive into the Chineseplan,” Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence told lawmakers during aCongressional hearing.
He was responding to concerns of top American Senators in this regard.
“The biggest issue of our time, in the view of most of the members of thiscommittee and, I would venture to guess, most of the members of this panel,is China and the risk they pose,” Senator Marco Rubio said during a hearingon “Worldwide threat assessment” held by the Senate Select Committee onIntelligence.
“I’m not sure, in the 240-some-odd-year history of his nation, we’ve everfaced a competitor and potential adversary of this scale, scope andcapacity,” he said. “It is my personal view and shared by many people —that they are carrying out a well-orchestrated, well-executed, very patientlong-term strategy to replace the United States as the most powerful andinfluential nation on Earth,” Rubio said.
“You see that reflected in this repeated use of this term, ‘community ofcommon destiny,’ which basically means a retreat from western values ofdemocracy and freedom and openness, towards some other model that benefitsthem,” he said. Rubio said that the Chinese pursuit of this appears to beevery element of their national power: their military, commercial, trade,economics, information and media.
“The tools they use are everything from hacking into companies and criticalinfrastructure and defence contractors — everybody you can imagine — tousing our immigration system against us, to even our universities,” Rubiosaid. Coats said the US has full awareness of what the Chinese areattempting to do on a global basis.
“There’s no question that what you have just articulated is what’shappening with China. They’re doing it in a very smart way… a veryeffective way. They are looking beyond their own region. It’s clear, thatthey have a long-term strategic objective to become a world power,” hesaid. He said that China is executing ways in which it can accomplish theobjective to become a world power. “We have intensive studies going onthroughout the intelligence community, relative to A to Z on what China isdoing. General Mattis has asked us for that. Others have asked us toprovide that,” Coats said.
“We are pulling all of our elements of intelligence gathering together toprovide a very, very deep dive into what China’s plan — is doing now andwhat their plans are for the future and how it would — impact on the US,”he said. Senator Mark Warner, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee onIntelligence, said he is concerned that China has developed anall-of-society, not just all-of-government, approach to gain access tosensitive technologies and intellectual property.
“I’m paying a great deal of attention to the rise of China’s technologysector. In particular, I’m worried about the close relationship between theChinese government and Chinese technology firms, particularly in the areaof commercialisation of our surveillance technology and efforts to shapetelecommunication equipment markets,” he said.
“I want to ensure that the IC is tracking the direction that China’s techgiants are heading, and especially the extent to which they are beholden tothe Chinese government. In recent years, we’ve seen major technologiesfirms whose rise is attributed in part to the illicit access of UStechnology and IP,” Warner said.
“These companies now represent some of the leading market playersglobally…But, as they enter Western economic markets, we want to ensurethat they play by the rules. We need to make sure that this is not a newway for China to gain access to sensitive technology,” he said.