Intel chief: China’s economic woes increase danger of war

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China’s significant economic problems are increasing the danger Beijing will strike out in a conflict against Taiwan or another regional adversary, the Biden administration’s director of national intelligence warned in a threat assessment made public Monday.

DNI Avril Haines told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that China’s communist leadership fears a U.S. nuclear “first strike” and, in response, has deployed more than 300 ground-based nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles in the western part of the country. The expanding nuclear forces increase the danger Beijing will feel emboldened to launch conventional conflicts, she stated.

“Taiwan is a significant potential flashpoint for confrontation between the [People’s Republic of China] and the United States, as Beijing claims that the United States is using Taiwan to undermine China’s rise,” Ms. Haines said in prepared remarks. “Beijing will use even stronger measures to push back against perceived increases in U.S. support to Taiwan.”

Ms. Haines’ testimony during the annual threat hearing was disrupted temporarily by three pro-Hamas demonstrators who began shouting during the hearing. One demanded an Israeli cease-fire. They were quickly escorted out of the hearing room.

In addition to China, Russia continues to pose threats to American security and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East highlight the increasing danger of transnational dangers, the panel of security chiefs told lawmakers Monday. The panel included FBI Director Christopher A. Wray; CIA Director William J. Burns; Air Force Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, director of the National Security Agency; and Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Wray said the FBI is investigating Chinese purchases of U.S. land near military bases and critical infrastructure that can be used for data collection, spying or “worse” — a reference to potential sabotage during a future crisis.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is presiding in Beijing over the closing sessions of a major national congress this week, is driving the country to become the dominant world power, Mr. Haines said in her testimony.

Deep-seated economic crises, endemic corruption and demographic decline pose serious problems for China’s leadership. Youth unemployment in China is 14.9%, and the government is not introducing economic stimulus, Ms. Haines said, adding that the coming years will be difficult with a shrinking population and slowing economic growth.

Chinese leaders are also seeking to boost indigenous technology development while continuing to steal or acquire U.S. intellectual property.

Intelligence agencies expect the People’s Liberation Army to field more advanced weapons, deploy new technologies and “grow more confident in joint operations, with a particular focus on Taiwan and the Western Pacific,” Ms. Haines said in her testimony.

“China’s serious demographic and economic challenges may make it an even more aggressive and unpredictable global actor,” she added, noting that Beijing is facing “myriad domestic challenges.”

Ms. Haines testified that China’s military lacks recent warfighting experience, which likely weakens the People’s Liberation Army’s effectiveness and probably will lead Mr. Xi and other Chinese leaders to avoid launching a war for now.

“In addition, PRC leaders almost certainly are concerned about the ongoing impact of corruption on the military’s capabilities and reliability, judging from a purge of high-level officers, including the defense minister, in 2023,” she said.

Still, Chinese military capabilities, bolstered by advanced arms technology, continue to expand with the deployment of multiple types of missiles, including hypersonic missiles, aircraft carriers and new warplanes.

Space and cyberwar weaponry developed by the Chinese military also pose threats, she stated.

“If Beijing believed that a major conflict with the United States were imminent, it would consider aggressive cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure and military assets,” Ms. Haines said. “Such a strike would be designed to deter U.S. military action by impeding U.S. decision-making, inducing societal panic and interfering with the deployment of U.S. forces.”

A range of adversaries

Ms. Haines said Russia’s war in Ukraine caused “enormous damage” inside the country and abroad. Moscow has strengthened ties with China, Iran and North Korea to bolster defense production and its economy.

Russia is seeking to avoid a conflict with the United States and the NATO alliance but is continuing to conduct asymmetric activity globally below the threshold of direct military conflict, she said.

Despite losses estimated to include 300,000 casualties in Ukraine, Russia has gained strategic military advantages in Ukraine in recent months and is “increasingly shifting the momentum in Moscow’s favor,” Ms. Haines said.

On Iran, Ms. Haines said U.S. officials assess that Tehran is not currently engaged in developing key nuclear arms but, since 2020, has “greatly expanded its nuclear program” should it ever need to obtain a bomb and is no longer constrained by the 2015 nuclear agreement with the West.

Iran is currently taking action “that better positions it to produce a nuclear device if it chooses to do so,” she said.

The threat posed by North Korea also is increasing. The military under North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has built up its nuclear arsenal to offset the weaknesses of its conventional military forces.

Mr. Kim “remains strongly committed to developing capabilities intended to challenge regional missile defense, diversify options to deliver nuclear warheads, and enhance second-strike capabilities,” Ms. Haines said.

In 2023, North Korea revealed new unmanned aerial vehicles similar to the MQ-9 Predator and Global Hawk drones. The regime in Pyongyang is also building more capable missiles, including cruise missiles, ICBMs and hypersonic glide vehicles.

In January, North Korea launched a new, solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile armed with a maneuverable, hypersonic reentry vehicle, she said.

During the hearing, all the intelligence agency leaders voiced support for renewing surveillance powers under legislation known as Section 702. The authority is needed for countering threats from foreign governments and non-state terrorist groups.

Border threats

Much of the questioning by senators involved the threats from the southern border with Mexico.

“From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border,” Mr. Wray said. The threat includes large-scale trafficking in fentanyl and increased violent crime from migrants coming into the U.S., he said.

Mr. Wray also said China’s government so far has not cooperated in halting flows of “precursor” chemicals for fentanyl or pill processing machines. Based on the continuing scale of the fentanyl crisis, “there is a whole lot of room for improvement from the Chinese government” in curbing precursor chemicals.

Mr. Burns, the CIA director, said he recently returned from Ukraine and urged Congress to continue funding arms for the Ukrainian military. With continued U.S. aid, Kyiv can regain the offensive against Russia by the end of this year or early next year, he said.

A U.S. failure to back the Ukrainians will feed doubts about U.S. resolve to defend Indo-Pacific nations from Chinese threats against Taiwan and the South China Sea, Mr. Burns said.

“I think the truth is that the Ukrainians are not running out of courage and tenacity. They’re running out of ammunition, and we’re running out of time to help them,” Mr. Burns said.

The CIA chief also is leading negotiations to settle the conflict in the Middle East.

A potential agreement could include the return of about 40 hostages held by Hamas consisting of women and older men who are wounded or seriously ill, he said. The hostages would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

A second element of the deal would be a six-week cease-fire as a first step in a more enduring end to the conflict. The proposed accord would also allow a surge in humanitarian assistance to trapped civilian residents of Gaza caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hamas.

“I don’t think anybody can guarantee success,” Mr. Burns said. “What I think you can guarantee is that the alternatives are worse for innocent civilians in Gaza who are suffering under desperate conditions for the hostages and their families who are suffering, also under very desperate conditions.”

The annual threat assessment statement disclosed that the CIA still is unable to reach a definitive conclusion on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, with intelligence agencies saying either an animal or a leak from a Chinese laboratory is the likely cause.

CIA analysts “have not yet concluded that there is definitive evidence on either side of this, whether natural transmission or lab exit,” Mr. Burns said.

The FBI concluded with “moderate confidence” that the virus leaked from some type of laboratory accident in Wuhan, Mr. Wray said, a charge Chinese officials have strongly denied. The FBI relied on “a whole slew of experts” and the Bureau’s analysts “stand by that assessment,” Mr. Wray said.

Chinese agents are seeking to steal American artificial intelligence technology and the FBI is stepping up efforts to protect the technology, the FBI director said.

“We’re keenly concerned that the Chinese, which have, as I’ve testified repeatedly, a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined if they steal our AI to power it, it makes words like ‘force multiplier’ sound like an understatement,” Mr. Wray said.

Mr. Wray said Chinese land purchases in the U.S. are yet another focus of FBI investigations.

“We’re investigating a number of instances proactively where we’re seeing either commercial real estate or land being purchased by those with ties to the PRC near critical infrastructure,” he said.

Chinese companies are controlled by the government and the ruling Communist Party, “so we’re particularly concerned about situations where a purchase of land near a military installation and critical infrastructure or something like that could be leveraged to enable anything from espionage data collection, or worse,” Mr. Wray said.

Committee Vice Chairman Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said Chinese leaders believe the United States is in decline and that Beijing’s rise is inevitable. As a result, the Chinese are expanding their military in extraordinary ways regionally and around the world.

Mr. Rubio said China is helping flood the United States with deadly fentanyl that is destroying communities. Beijing also is controlling the popular video app TikTok through the Chinese company ByteDance, which controls an advanced software algorithm that uses artificial intelligence.

“The problem is not TikTok or the videos. The problem is the algorithm that powers it is controlled by a company in China that must do whatever the Chinese Communist Party tells them to do,” he said.