National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanina said in an interview on Tuesday that "no country poses a broader, more severe intelligence collection threat to America than China."
Evanina, a longtime federal government official who leaves his post this week, noted in an interview with Fox News that "from a threat perspective, Russia is a significant adversary particularly with regard to cyber intrusions, malign influence, and sowing discord in our democracy. However, no country poses a broader, more severe intelligence collection threat to America than China."
He added that China used social media to "continue to stoke the fire and sow discord in America," and that "China continues to engage in a highly sophisticated malign foreign influence campaign against America because we are a democracy, and democracy is bad for China."
Evanina noted that methods include "bribery, blackmail, covert dealings with businesses, and an effort to influence American policies and attitudes so that they align with China's interests globally.
"This is not only just a government problem," he warned. "This is a society problem.
"We have to educate America so they know what malign influence tastes like, smells like, looks like, so when they see it, they can call it out," Evanina continued. "This will take a whole of society approach, invoking the government, the intelligence community, law enforcement, social media, Big Tech companies, to be able to say what this is."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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