China is ‘greatest long-term threat’ to the US, FBI director Christopher Wray says
- China’s efforts to usurp US are playing out in local politics and industries including aviation, agriculture, robotics and health care, Christopher Wray says
- Wray says the FBI opens a new China-related counter-intelligence investigation every 10 hours
China is seeking to become the world’s only superpower by usurping the United States with a government-directed “campaign of theft and malign influence”, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director said on Tuesday.
In a wide-ranging attack on Beijing’s behaviour on the world stage delivered at the conservative think tank Hudson Institute, Christopher Wray said that the counter-intelligence and economic espionage threat from China represented the “greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality”.
China’s “generational fight” to usurp the US was playing out in fields ranging from local politics to industries including aviation, agriculture, robotics and health care, said Wray, accusing Beijing of working to compromise American institutions conducting “essential” Covid-19 research.
The charges come at a nadir in US-China relations, with tensions boiling on a number of fronts including the coronavirus pandemic, Beijing’s handling of Hong Kong, and treatment of each other’s respective journalists.
Those spats have come on top of long-standing concerns in the US of a state-orchestrated theft of American technology by China, allegations that in part fuelled the still-simmering trade war that began two years ago.