Trump Spy Chief Labels China Biggest Threat To Freedom Since World War Two

The top U.S. intelligence official stepped up the Trump administration’s harsh attacks on Beijing on Thursday, labeling China the biggest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War Two and saying it was bent on global domination.

“The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically,” Director of National Intelligence 👤John Ratcliffe said in an opinion article on the Wall Street Journal website.

Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman appointed by Trump to the top U.S. spy job last spring, said China posed “the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War Two.”

He said he had shifted resources within the $85 billion annual federal budget allocated to intelligence to increase the focus on China.

Ratcliffe said China’s economic espionage approach was threefold: “Rob, Replicate and Replace.”

He said the strategy was for Chinese entities to steal American companies’ intellectual property, copy it and then supplant U.S. companies in the global market place.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy rejected Ratcliffe’s comments as “fact-distorting” and hypocritical and said they showed “the entrenched Cold-War mindset and ideological prejudices of some people on the U.S. side”.

Beijing has frequently called on U.S. leaders to dial back their rhetoric on China, which it blames on fear of China’s growing role in the world.

Ratcliffe’s essay was the latest broadside against China from President Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to cement the outgoing president’s tough-on-China legacy following his Nov. 3 election defeat.

Trump’s approach has taken relations between the world’s two largest economies to their lowest point in decades and analysts say it could limit the incoming Biden administration’s room for maneuver in dealing with Beijing.