FBI Director Christopher Wray said the growing economic and national security threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party is graver than ever, likening the danger to a more technologically sophisticated Soviet Union.
“In many ways, it has reached a new level more brazen, more damaging than ever before, and it’s vital — vital — that all of us focus on that threat together,” said Wray in a Monday night speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
Wray drew a grim comparison between the current situation and the communist threat the United States faced during the Cold War.
“There are some surface-level similarities between the threat posed by the Chinese government and the historical threat of the Soviet Union: The Chinese government also rejects the fundamental freedoms, basic human rights, and democratic norms we value as Americans,” Wray said.
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Yet, the relationship with China is more complicated because China and the U.S. are intertwined economically, and the former is a far bigger economic power than the Soviet Union ever was, he said.
“China may be the first government to combine authoritarian ambitions with cutting edge technical capability,” Wray said. “It’s like the surveillance nightmare of East Germany combined with the tech of Silicon Valley.”
The FBI chief’s warnings came just ahead of the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, dubbed the “Genocide Olympics,” as the U.S. concluded the CCP is conducting genocide against Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang in western China.
The FBI director said the bureau has more than 2,000 active investigations focused on the Chinese government attempting to steal U.S. information and technology, revealing the FBI is opening new China-linked counterintelligence operations every 12 hours.
“There is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China,” he said.
The DOJ’s China Initiative, started by the Trump Department of Justice in 2018, focuses on rooting out academics who conceal their ties to China. The Chinese Communist Party has long condemned the initiative and has seized on U.S.-based efforts by professors and activists to end it.
Despite setbacks in some cases, numerous people have been convicted through the China Initiative, including Harvard professor Charles Lieber. Lieber was found guilty in December of all federal charges related to concealing his ties to a Chinese university and the Chinese government’s Thousand Talents Program while receiving U.S. government funding.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, who recently announced the creation of a new domestic terrorism unit, is currently reviewing the initiative, and the Biden DOJ has dropped high-profile cases in recent months.
Wray said China’s “massive and sophisticated hacking program” is larger than those of every other nation combined, noting Chinese state-backed hackers were operating out of pretty much every major Chinese city.
The U.S. and its allies in July blamed China’s Ministry of State Security for the massive hack against Microsoft in early 2021, with the DOJ also charging members of the Chinese intelligence agency over a separate global espionage campaign.
The DOJ and U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Huawei and other Chinese companies are working hand in hand with the ruling Communist Party. Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $1 million by Huawei in 2021 as Beijing sought to soften the Biden administration’s position on the Chinese telecommunications giant.
Wray also said the CCP aims to “corrupt our leaders and to buy or intimidate acquiescence to their will,” including by “trying to undermine our democratic process by influencing our elected officials.”
Several high-profile examples of China trying to influence U.S. elected officials and their families have emerged in recent years.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, reportedly had a romantic relationship with a woman who was, unbeknownst to him at the time, a Chinese agent.
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Fang Fang, also known as Christine Fang, is believed to have been working with China’s Ministry of State Security and reportedly conducted an extensive political influence operation between 2011 and 2015 on behalf of the CCP in the Bay Area and elsewhere. Swalwell reportedly cut ties with Fang after being briefed by the FBI in 2015.
President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, long held a 10% ownership stake in Chinese investment firm Bohai Harvest, which invested in several controversial Chinese companies, including ones sanctioned by the U.S. government. Hunter Biden is under criminal investigation related to his taxes and likely his foreign business dealings, including his lucrative efforts in China.
