China, the burning issue for new CIA spy chief

FULLER VERSION OF MY SPY CHIEF STORY IN THE TIMES TODAY: America’s new spy chief will put China as his top target for espionage when he takes over as CIA director this week. William Burns, a longstanding career diplomat, nominated by President Biden to be the 26th director of the CIA, is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate later this week. The CIA’s pivot towards China will match the Pentagon’s increasing focus on the Asia-Pacific region where Beijing is accused of operating a maritime strategy which the US says is both aggressive and unlawful. Burns who served as a diplomat for 33 years, described the Beijing leadership as “adversarial” and “predatory” during his Senate intelligence committee confirmation hearing last week. US intelligence sources told The Times that China was already a high-profile target for the CIA. But the new director planned to expand the number of China specialists to keep pace with the growing challenge posed by Beijing. “We have large intelligence and analysis structures that exist to cover China but the new director has said he plans to strengthen this department,” the sources said. Burns is expected to boost the role of the CIA’s East Asia and Pacific mission centre which is responsible for China and other countries in the region where Beijing is trying to dominate. In 2018, Michael Collins, then deputy assistant director of the East Asia and Pacific mission centre, warned that China was waging “a quiet kind of cold war” against the US, trying to become the leading power in the world by undermining the US on multiple fronts. Addressing the annual Aspen security forum in Colorado, Collins said China’s construction of military bases on islands in the South China Sea whose sovereignty is disputed by half a dozen nations in the region was like “the Crimea of the East”. He was comparing Beijing’s actions with Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. Burns appears to shares this view of China. In a written statement to the Senate intelligence committee he said China posed America’s “biggest geopolitical test”. He also accused Beijing of “methodically strengthening its capabilities to steal intellectual property” from the US. According to the US justice department, about 80 per cent of all economic espionage prosecutions involve intellectual property theft “ that would benefit the Chinese state”. Burns whose wife is a senior official with the United Nations humanitarian affairs office, also singled out China for repressing its own people and bullying its neighbours. “For the CIA that will mean intensified focus and urgency, continually strengthening its already-impressive cadre of China specialists, expanding its language skills [and] aligning personnel and resource allocation for the long haul,” he said. The US intelligence sources said that while there would be more focus on China it would not mean a downgrading of interest and resources for counter-terrorism. “The CIA has to look at everything,” one source said. Although Burns, 64, has never worked for the CIA and is the first career diplomat to be appointed to the top post, he has served closely with the intelligence agency at home and overseas throughout his different postings. He was present in the White House situation room in May 2011 when Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan was raided by US Navy Seals, following the CIA’s ten-year hunt for the al-Qaeda leader.