U.S. Spooks Tell It Like It Is About China

The US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment for 2023 certainly cannot be faulted for having a narrow focus or Pollyanna perspective and did not focus on China’s domestic political challenges, Kent Harrington, a former CIA official, reported for Project Syndicate.

Photo Insert: The assessment shows IC is concentrating on China and rightly so as the CIA seeks to rebuild its spy network there, which Beijing and Tehran worked so hard to bust.

From a rising China, Russian aggression, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions to climate change, future pandemics, and the growing reach of international organized crime, the intelligence community’s (IC’s) analysis is as comprehensive as it is worrying.

The assessment shows IC is concentrating on China and rightly so as the CIA seeks to rebuild its spy network there, which Beijing and Tehran worked so hard to bust.

Yet when testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 8, US National Intelligence Director Avril Haines was not as constrained.

She made it abundantly clear that the Biden administration regards China as “our unparalleled challenge,” and as America’s leading national security threat.

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