“From a threat perspective, Russia is a significant adversary particularly with regard to cyber intrusions, malign influence, and sowing discord in our democracy,” Evanina explained. “However, no country poses a broader, more severe intelligence collection threat to America than China.”
Evanina, who has spent decades serving in intelligence agencies, further explained that malign foreign influence has been increasing in recent years.
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“Specifically, in the last year, with respect to the death of George Floyd, COVID, the vaccine, the election process—we saw foreign adversaries, including China, working diligently to expose and amplify discourse in the U.S.,” he said, remarking that the CCP is utilizing an enhanced social media presence to “stoke the fire” and create discord in the United States.
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“China continues to engage in a highly sophisticated malign foreign influence campaign against America because we are a democracy, and democracy is bad for China,” Evanina noted, adding that “bribery, blackmail, covert dealings with businesses, and an effort to influence American policies and attitudes so that they align with China’s interests globally.”
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While he did not specify any official, Axios last year reported that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.)—who sits on the House Intelligence Committee—was in a close relationship with an identified Chinese spy. Swalwell has issued few public comments on the reports, although he stated that federal law enforcement briefed him and others on the matter years ago.
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“This is not only just a government problem,” Evanina warned. “This is a society problem.”
Evanina explained that Americans have to figure out what malign foreign influence “tastes like, smells like, looks like, so when they see it, they can call it out.”
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“This will take a whole of society approach, invoking the government, the intelligence community, law enforcement, social media, big tech companies, to be able to say what this is,” he went on.
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Evanina said that the CCP’s foreign influence has focused more and more on elected officials at the local, state, and federal level. They are aiming at both anti-China and pro-China officials, he said.
“I think the challenge for the Biden administration will be to understand the scope and scale of some of the Chinese threats in the American landscape, domestically, and what is the best course to defeat that,” Evanina said. “I have confidence they’ll be able to do that when they get in here, because there are scores of professional intelligence officers and law enforcement folks that are working around the world that will help them to find solutions.”
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