US intelligence was ‘unprepared’ to deal with growing threat from China

The House Intelligence Committee of the United States believes that the American intelligence industry is not prepared to respond to the growing threat from China.

The confidential report, published in 37 pages but partially deleted, is the result of two years of investigation by the commission, warning that a “substantial realignment of resources” is needed to keep the United States competitive. competition with China in the world arena.

This delay comes after two decades of American focus on counterterrorism after the 9/11 attacks.

According to Politico and SCMP, the US intelligence community has been unable to keep up with China’s technological and political advances in the past two decades, a delay that risks plunging policy makers into the shadows. perpetually dark about a growing strategic challenge to the country’s national security, according to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

The report comes as the United States faces threats from China, from military construction and the export of a “digital dictatorship” to Beijing. Reports are marked confidential. The Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives, voting in its closed-door meeting Wednesday morning, provided a revised summary.

“Without a substantial reorganization of resources, the United States government and intelligence community will not achieve the results necessary to allow the United States to continue to compete with China on a global level for decades. And to protect the health and safety of states. United “, the warning summary.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement that “the intelligence community’s ability to tackle tough targets like China has weakened” after two decades of focusing on fighting terrorism. . announced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“The nation’s intelligence agencies” have a lot of work to do to fully address the challenge posed by China, “he said.

Wednesday’s report was the result of an alleged “detailed investigation” into what it considered worrisome about Chinese operations globally, including malicious network efforts and campaigns. Beijing misinformation; export invasive surveillance technology; and the threat that the Chinese intelligence service continues to pose to US security and national information security.

A committee official said most of the reform recommendations were directed at senior managers. The official added that the panel received “mixed results” from different US intelligence elements on the Chinese issues it was focusing on, but declined to say which of the 17 intelligence agencies that best deal with related issues. with China.

Among the public recommendations: official reviews of open source intelligence management in the intelligence community; a broader and more formal leadership effort to advise the next generation of Chinese analysts.

Some of the recommendations will be easier for the agencies to handle, but some proposals, such as the creation of a bipartisan and bicameral investigation team to assess what the intelligence community can be like, the committee official said. Organizing these issues, and how power is divided, can take up to a decade to fully implement.

The report includes 36 public recommendations and more than 100 confidential recommendations.

The summary does not mention allegations of election meddling by President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr, and other top US officials in recent weeks.

But it highlights the risk posed by Beijing’s “influencers”, government propaganda efforts and misinformation surrounding events such as protests in Hong Kong and the COVID-19 outbreak.

“The spread of Chinese disinformation, combined with a myriad of foreign threats and state-backed disinformation operations emanating from Russia, Iran and other adversaries, would set the stage for attacks on the truth, damaging the United States’ ability to develop policies abroad and interact effectively with American citizens, “the summary states.

Another committee official said the source of the investigation could be traced to the 2012 bipartisan panel report that concludes that Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE are a threat. National security.

The report’s release also comes amid the White House spat over President Donald Trump’s recent executive order banning access to the popular Chinese mobile app TikTok, citing security concerns. National security.

Earlier this week, a federal judge said the US administration was “probably” out of authority in trying to impose restrictions on short-form video applications owned by the Chinese tech giant. National ByteDance.

Fears have only grown since 2015, when China stole millions of super-sensitive security clearance records held by the Bureau of Personnel Management, the militarization of the South China Sea, and the crackdown on Beijing. for the Uyghur Muslim minority.

The document dedicates a considerable part to Beijing’s response to Covid-19, from the initial cover-up of the virus when it first appeared in Wuhan, to its attempt to devise authoritarian logic in the digital realm. A new phone app, for example, is designed to notify users of their self-quarantine status, collect their data, and send it to the local police.

“The problem with this assessment is that there is a lot of talk about competing with China … but we really want to seriously consider what it means to compete with China for public. Co-intelligence,” said a commission official.