Washington:
The US Central Intelligence Agency announced Thursday a new China-focused unit that underscored its view of Beijing as the country’s toughest lengthy-term adversary.
CIA Director William Burns mentioned in a statement that the new China Mission Center will address the challenge China poses to all of the US spy agency’s mission locations.
“CMC will further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government,” Burns mentioned.
The announcement parallels the broader shift of the administration of President Joe Biden to confronting China as its major “strategic competitor.”
In June Biden announced a new job force at the Pentagon to assess and respond to Beijing’s military challenge.
Burns’ announcement came soon after the CIA and FBI have unearthed dozens of circumstances of China recruiting US citizens to provide it classified or corporate proprietary info, and making use of Chinese citizens working in the United States as intelligence collectors as properly.
It also comes as US intelligence sees their Chinese rivals generating use of their strength in the worldwide electronics industry and in hacking to penetrate US government and private pc networks.
Underscoring the challenge from Beijing as properly as other rivals like Pakistan, the CIA lately sent a memo to its arms about the world admitting that it had lost dozens of its personal covert informants in other nations, some captured or killed, according to the New York Times and Washington Post.
“Throughout our history, CIA has stepped up to meet whatever challenges come our way… And now facing our toughest geopolitical test in a new era of great power rivalry, CIA will be at the forefront of this effort,” Burns mentioned.
Burns, a veteran diplomat who became CIA director in March, also announced a new position, CIA chief technologies officer, and a new Transnational and Technology Mission Center.
The center will address worldwide problems important to US competitiveness, the statement mentioned, such as emerging technologies, financial safety, climate transform and overall health challenges.
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