CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis has said that China's economic rise makes the Asian nation pose a unique challenge to the US’s global influence. Both nations have been fighting a trade war with each other since 7 April, when the US announced sanctions of 125 per cent on imports from China to Washington.
“China is the existential threat to American security in a way that we have never confronted before,” Ellis said in an interview that aired on Wednesday. Unlike with the Soviet Union, the current competition is primarily unfolding along economic lines, he explained. He said technological supremacy in fields such as AI, quantum computing, biotech, semiconductors, and advanced energy storage will eventually determine the outcome of the geopolitical contest.
He further outlined the CIA’s evolving priorities in an era where traditional methods of human intelligence gathering face increasing limitations. There has to be an “evolution in operational tradecraft,” Ellis stated. "While some of the tools and techniques from the 1960s or 70s might still work today, a lot of them need to be updated and refreshed."
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To meet the challenge, Elis said the agency is recruiting an “elite workforce” with advanced scientific and engineering expertise, highlighting a drive to build “the ultimate meritocracy at the CIA.” Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of clinging to a “Cold War mentality” and seeking global dominance instead of embracing a multipolar world based on cooperation and mutual benefit. Following the recent negotiations, both sides issued a joint statement pledging to resolve their disagreements through “mutual opening, continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect.”
This week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio again said the Trump administration intends to shift its attention from EU affairs to China. “Every dollar we spend on this Ukraine conflict in Europe is distracting both our focus and our resources away from the potential for a much more serious, much more cataclysmic confrontation in the Indo-Pacific,” Rubio told lawmakers.
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