US intelligence assessment moves China to the top of the threat list

The US intelligence community has put China at the top of its annual report of national security threats, warning of Beijing's struggle to realise "an epochal geopolitical shift", including increased air and naval operations in Asia intended to assert its control in contested areas.

"Beijing is increasingly combining its growing military power with its economic, technological and diplomatic clout to preserve the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], secure what it views as its territory and regional pre-eminence and pursue international cooperation at Washington's expense," said the report, published last week and declassified on Tuesday.

The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), begins with a section on "China's push for global power", followed by three sections describing the "provocative actions" of Russia, Iran and North Korea, before moving on to international issues such as Covid-19 and climate change.

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In the South and East China seas, Beijing "will use growing numbers of air, naval and maritime law enforcement platforms" in an effort to show Japan and Southeast Asian countries that it has effective control over the contested areas, the report warned.

"We expect the PLA [People's Liberation Army] to continue pursuing overseas military installations and access agreements to enhance its ability to project power," it said, adding that the PLA's "highly accurate short-, medium- and intermediate-range conventional systems are capable of holding US and allied bases in the region at risk".

The ODNI, now under the leadership of Avril Haines in President Joe Biden's administration, picks up where her predecessor under former president Donald Trump, John Ratcliffe, left off. Ratcliffe wrote in an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal in December that China "poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II".

Ratcliffe's commentary and the latest ODNI threat report underscore a significant change in the agency's treatment of China. Its previous comprehensive threat assessment, published in January 2019 when Dan Coats was national intelligence director, included a "China and Russia" section more than halfway into the document under the heading of "regional threats".

"The door for dialogue with China is open. But the dialogue should be done on equal basis and with mutual respect," he said.

"China will not accept that there is any nation in the world that [can] put itself superior to the others, and that any nation will have a final say on world affairs. If the US continues to confront, China will take it calmly without fear."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2021 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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