US intelligence community says China is the most ‘consequential’ threat to national security

President Joe BidenChina’s top intelligence adviser said Wednesday that China is the biggest threat to US national security and its “most serious and consequential intelligence rival.”

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee that China’s growing challenges to the US make it “our unprecedented priority” as leaders of US spy agencies presented their annual assessment. of threats.

China “represents both the primary and most significant threat to US national security and leadership globally, and its specific intelligence capabilities and ambitions make it our most serious and important intelligence rival,” Haines said.

He added that China wants to avoid all-out hostilities with the United States, believing that it “benefits most from avoiding a spiral of tensions and preserving stability” in the relationship.

Haines also called for China’s “deepening of collaboration with Russia” as Moscow continues its war against Ukraine. The United States has previously said that China has considered providing lethal military aid to Russia and has warned Beijing against doing so.

Russia early Thursday morning attacked Ukraine with missiles in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as an effort “to intimidate the Ukrainians again.”

The report released by Haines’ office He said that while Russian leaders have so far avoided expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders, that risk remains.

“Russia probably does not want direct military conflict with US and NATO forces, but there is a chance that could happen,” the report states.

Haines told senators that Moscow is unlikely to achieve “significant territorial gains” from the war, but that does not seem enough to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Most likely, Putin calculates that time is on his side, and that prolonging the war, even with possible lulls in fighting, may be the best path left for him to finally secure Russia’s strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it takes years,” Haines said. .

The threat assessment also considered the internal security of the United States. Transnational racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who embrace white supremacy, neo-Nazism, among other extreme ideas, “pose the deadliest threat” to Americans and “a significant threat to various US allies and partners through of attacks and propaganda advocating violence,” he said.

He also warned that a protracted war in Ukraine could provide foreign extremists with training and battlefield experience, as well as weapons.

The report did not mention TikTok, but the senators reiterated security concerns about the social media platform’s parent company’s ties to China.

Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) introduced legislation Tuesday that could allow the commerce secretary to take action against companies that may be abused by foreign actors.

fbi Director Christopher Wray said China, through TikTok, could have the ability to control the data of millions of users and potentially use its software to divide Americans and influence opinion about a possible invasion of Taiwan.

“Something that is very sacred in our country, the difference between the private sector and the public sector, that is a line that does not exist” in the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, Wray said.

Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.) then asked Wray to describe to Americans the dangers of TikTok.

“If you were to ask Americans if you would like to hand over your data, all your data, control of your devices, control of your information to the CCP, most Americans would say I don’t agree with that, as my children would say. . Wray said. “That’s the question we’re asking.”