- CIA Director William Burns has said that the greater threat to the United States is China, not Russia.
- Burns said the CIA has more than doubled its China budget in the past two years.
- Burns said the CIA is “intensifying its efforts around the world to compete with China.”
CIA Director William J. Burns said the agency views China as a far greater threat to the United States than Russia and is devoting more resources than ever to countering it.
“Russia may pose the greatest immediate threat, but the longer-term threat is greater from China,” Burns said in a Foreign Affairs editorial published Tuesday.
“The CIA is devoting significantly more resources to China-related intelligence gathering, operations, and analysis around the world, and in the past two years alone, the CIA has focused more of its total budget on China,” Burns wrote in the article. “The proportion has more than doubled.”
The increased focus has led the CIA to recruit and train more Chinese speakers, Burns said. The CIA director said the agency is “intensifying efforts to counter China around the world, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.”
Burns' comments about China echo those of Britain's MI6 chief Richard Moore.
“We're putting more resources into China than any other mission right now,” Moore said in an interview with Politico in July. “This reflects China's importance in the world and the critical importance of understanding both the Chinese government's intentions and capabilities.”
Western countries are increasingly wary of Chinese espionage. Last February, the US military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon after it flew over the US mainland.
In late June, the Wall Street Journal reported that China was planning to establish a spy base in Cuba. The magazine said the base could be used to eavesdrop on signals from military installations in the southeastern United States.
Representatives for Mr. Burns did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment outside of normal business hours.
