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The Chinese government’s threat to the west is “more blatant, more harmful” than ever, said FBI Director Christopher Wray, accusing Beijing of stealing US ideas and innovation and launching massive piracy operations.
A speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in California on Monday sparked a scathing rebuke from the Chinese government just days before Beijing took over the world stage for hosting the Winter Olympics.
In another U.S. bailout of China on Monday, billionaire George Soros said Chinese President Xi Jinping was the “great threat” to the open society around the world. However, he added in his speech that the crisis engulfing China’s “unsustainable” real estate market could be the fall of Xi, along with other growing problems such as Omicron containment, the pursuit of total social control and the fall in birth rates.
Wray’s remarks made it clear that while US foreign policy continues to be consumed by tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the United States continues to view China as its greatest threat to long-term economic security.
“When we look at what we see in our research, more than 2,000 of which focus on the Chinese government trying to steal our information or technology, there is no country that poses a broader threat to our ideas, innovation and economic security than China, “Wray said, according to a copy of the speech provided by the FBI.
The office is opening new cases to counter Chinese intelligence operations every 12 hours or so, Wray said, with Chinese government hackers stealing more personal and corporate data than all other countries combined.
“The damage to the Chinese government’s economic espionage is not just that its companies are advancing based on illegally obtained technology. As they move forward, they are pushing our companies and workers back,” Wray said. “This damage, business failures, job losses, has been accumulating for a decade in the crush we are feeling today. “.
Chinese government officials have repeatedly denied allegations by the U.S. government, and a spokesman for the embassy in Washington said in July last year that Americans had carried out “baseless attacks” and malicious defamation on Chinese cyberattacks. The statement described China as a “staunch supporter of cybersecurity.”
China’s threat is not new, but it has not diminished over the past decade.
“I’ve talked a lot about this threat since I became director,” in 2017, Wray said. “But I want to focus here tonight because it has reached a new level: more brazen, more harmful than ever, and it’s vital, vital that we all focus on this threat together.”
“The system is based on credit”
Speaking to a panel at the Hoover Institution on China, Soros said the victory of open societies “cannot be taken for granted” in a world on the brink of military aggression in Ukraine and Taiwan.
However, Xi Jinping’s attempt to impose “total control” on China through a city-wide blockade strategy could jeopardize his chances of staying in power, Soros said, because it is “little they are likely to work against a variant as infectious as Omicron. “
Despite Xi’s firm control over the army and its tools of repression and surveillance, Soros said it should not be assumed that in the face of strong internal opposition, the president will remain in power. He rules for “intimidation” and “no one dares to tell him what he doesn’t want to hear,” he said.
Soros’ comments seemed scheduled to coincide with preparations for the Winter Olympics, although several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, will not send any diplomats to protest human rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
Soros also argued that the world’s second-largest economy has become too dependent on the use of “unsustainable” real estate development to drive growth since Xi took power in 2013.
The sector, which accounts for about 30 percent of China’s economic output, was faltering with high-profile failures, such as Evergrande, which spread throughout the industry, leaving “the confidence of the people shaken” and the economy struggling. he said.
Add to that the disruption caused by trying to eliminate all cases of Covid-19 and a population decline that will lead to labor shortages, and China’s economic growth cannot be taken for granted.
“The model on which the real estate boom is based is unsustainable. People who buy apartments have to start paying for them even before they are built. Therefore, the system is based on credit. Local governments derive most of their income from the sale of land at ever-increasing prices.
The fall in prices that is already taking place in many parts of China “will put many of those who invested most of their savings in real estate against Xi,” Soros said.
