Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, stated that China posed the “greatest long-term danger to our economic and national security” and has meddled in politics, including recent elections.
The chief of MI5, Ken McCallum, stated that his organization had more than increased its efforts against Chinese activities over the past three years and would continue to do so.
The two directors of MI5 made their first public appearance together at MI5’s headquarters at Thames House, London.
Wray told the group, which included of corporate executives and academic leaders, that the Chinese government was “bent on taking your technology” via a variety of methods.
“A far more significant danger to western corporations than even many realized by many executives” he claimed. He gave examples of persons with ties to Chinese firms digging up genetically modified seeds in rural America, a practice that would have cost the firms billions of dollars and almost a decade to develop on their own.
In addition, he said that China used cyber espionage to “cheat and steal on a massive scale” through a hacking operation that was greater than that of all other major countries put together.
The chief of MI5 said in May that a sophisticated cyber threat targeting aircraft had been stopped, and that information concerning cyber threats had been shared with 37 nations.
According to Wray, China is learning “all kinds of lessons” from the war in Ukraine. They did this by taking precautions against more sanctions of the kind that have recently been imposed on Russia. If China invaded Taiwan, he added, western investments in China would become “hostages” and supply lines would be interrupted to an even larger extent than this year.
The FBI director told reporters after the speech, “I don’t have any reason to assume their interest in Taiwan has lessened in any form.”
While the chief of MI5 acknowledged that new laws would assist cope with the danger, he also acknowledged that the United Kingdom needs to become a “harder target” by raising awareness of the threats across all sectors of society. He said that as a result of visa liberalization, more than fifty students with ties to the Chinese military had left the United Kingdom.
Wray stated, “They are not flying under the radar anymore,” referring to China, which “has for far too long counted on being everybody’s second-highest priority.”
