China the world’s bad guy, says FBI boss Wray

FBI Director Christopher Wray didn’t hold back during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday.

He described China’s Communist government as the biggest threat to the US and the world — revealing his agency has more than 2,000 active investigations which trace back to the “shadowy regime,” the New York Post reported.

In an interview, Wray revealed there had been a startling 1,300% increase in espionage investigations into the Chinese region in the past decade and said the party was actively spying on Fortune 100 countries and trying to influence US politics.

“There’s no country that presents a broader or more comprehensive threat to America’s innovation, to our economic security and to our democratic ideas,” he said.

Communist Party to pursue a campaign of “economic espionage” which relied on “businessmen, high level scientists, high-level academics” to try to steal confidential information and American innovation to take back to China, the New York Post reported.

“It’s everything from Fortune 100 companies to startups. It’s agriculture, it’s high tech, it’s aviation, it’s healthcare,” he said.

The intelligence chief also said the CCP were involved in trying to influence US politics to “try to shift them in a more friendly pro-China, pro-Chinese Communist Party direction.”

Part of the problem, China watchers say, is that under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has given the world a masterclass in how to alienate and alarm even those who aren’t instinctively hostile toward the People’s Republic.

Decades after the surprising emergence and effectiveness of China’s “charm offensive,” Xi has appeared to have squandered all the good will, picking fights with just about every neighbor in Asia Pacific — leading some to believe, that Xi’s time has run out.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s administration has been actively trying to root-out Chinese covert interference in the US, with Congress also raising concerns about the Communist country’s growing influence in American universities, the New York Post reported.

In January, the chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry department was charged with lying about his dealings with Chinese agencies who paid him US$1.5 million for research.

Photo: FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed there had been a 1,300% increase in espionage investigations into the Chinese region in the past decade. Credit: Agence France Presse.

Link: https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/china-the-worlds-bad-guy-says-fbi-boss-wray/