U.S.: CHINA MANEUVERING TO EXPAND GLOBAL INFLUENCE

Intelligence report says nation trying to undercut alliances

China is engaged in a “whole-of-government” effort to spread its influence around the world, undercut U.S. alliances and “foster new international norms that favor the authoritarian Chinese system,” the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a report released Tuesday that casts China as the most significant, longterm threat to the United States and its partners.

China’s leaders see competition with the U.S. “as part of an epochal geopolitical shift,” and view sanctions and other economic countermeasures enacted during the Trump administration “as part of a broader U.S. effort to contain China’s rise,” according to the intelligence community’s “Annual Threat Assessment,” which top officials will present to Congress this week.

The report focuses on crosscutting international issues — including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and organized crime — that will challenge U.S. security and leadership, and it zeros in on Russia, North Korea and Iran as the other adversaries of greatest concern, with the latter poised to take new actions to develop a nuclear weapon.

China’s strategy, according to the report, is to drive wedges between the United States and its allies. Beijing has also used its success in combating the coronavirus pandemic to promote the “superiority of its system.”

The report predicts more tensions in the South China Sea, as Beijing continues to intimidate rivals in the region. It also predicts that China will press the government of Taiwan to move forward with unification and criticize efforts by the United States to bolster engagement with Taipei. But the report stopped short of predicting any kind of direct military conflict.

“We expect that friction will grow as Beijing steps up attempts to portray Taipei as internationally isolated and dependent on the mainland for economic prosperity, and as China continues to increase military activity around the island,” the report said.

It also foresees China at least doubling its nuclear stockpile over the next decade. “Beijing is not interested in arms-control agreements that restrict its modernization plans and will not agree to substantive negotiations that lock in U.S. or Russian nuclear advantage,” the report said.

China uses its electronic surveillance and hacking abilities to not only repress dissent domestically but also to conduct intrusions that affect people beyond its borders, the report said. The country also represents a growing threat of cyberattacks against the United States, and the intelligence agencies assess that Beijing “at a minimum, can cause localized, temporary disruptions to critical infrastructure within the United States.”

Assessments of Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon are likely to draw lawmakers’ scrutiny. The intelligence report found that Iran “is not currently undertaking” key activities necessary to produce a nuclear weapon, affirming an earlier judgment by the spy agencies at the same the Biden administration seeks to reenter a nuclear deal with Iran.

But in a sign of how rapidly intelligence may be overtaken by events, hours before the report’s public release, a senior Iranian official announced a major jump in the country’s enrichment of uranium, to 60 percent purity, a defiant move that followed a blackout at an enrichment facility that Iran described as an act of sabotage.

The incident has been widely attributed to Israel.

The U.S. intelligence report calls North Korea a “threat for the foreseeable future” because of its development of conventional military capabilities as well as nuclear weapons. While the Trump administration sought to reset relations with Pyongyang, the report concludes that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “remains strongly committed to the country’s nuclear weapons” and finds that “the country is actively engaged in ballistic missile research and development.”

Intelligence officials — including Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, and William Burns, the CIA director — will present their findings today and Thursday to the intelligence oversight committees in the Senate and House, marking the resumption of annual top-level testimony that was put on hold during the Trump administration.