FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at a press conference in November, accused Beijing of stealing American ideas and innovation and of launching large-scale hacking operations.
Andrew Harnik / AP file photo
hide captions
switch captions
Andrew Harnik / AP file photo
FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at a press conference in November, accused Beijing of stealing American ideas and innovation and of launching large-scale hacking operations.
Andrew Harnik / AP file photo
WASHINGTON – The threat to the West from the Chinese government is “brazen” and more damaging than ever, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Monday night accusing Beijing of stealing ideas and intelligence. American innovation and large-scale hacking operations.
The speech at the Reagan Presidential Library led to a sharp criticism of the Chinese government just days before Beijing is set to take over the global stage by hosting the Winter Olympics. It is clear that even as US foreign policy remains affected by Russia-Ukraine tensions, the US continues to view China as the greatest threat to long-term economic security.
“When we tally what we found in our investigations, more than 2,000 of which focused on the Chinese government’s attempt to steal our information or technology, no other country poses a greater threat to our ideas, innovation, and economic security than China,” Wray said, according to a copy of the speech provided by the FBI.
According to Wray, the Bureau is opening new cases against China’s intelligence activities every 12 hours, with Chinese government hackers stealing more personal and corporate data than any other. other countries combined.
“The harm from the Chinese government’s economic espionage is not just about its companies getting ahead based on illegally acquired technology. While they are ahead, then they push our companies and workers behind.” “The harm that – corporate failure, job loss – has done for a decade on us today.
Chinese government officials have repeatedly denied the accusations from the US government, with an embassy spokesman in Washington in July last year saying that the Americans had “cared out unfounded attacks” base” and maliciously smear China’s cyberattacks. The statement describes China as “a nation that protects cyber security”.
The threat from China is hardly new, but it hasn’t diminished in the past decade either.
“I’ve talked a lot about this threat since I became director” in 2017, Wray said. “But I want to focus on it here tonight because it has reached a new level – more brazen, more damaging than ever, and the important thing – vitally – is that we all focus together. to that threat.
The Justice Department in 2014 indicted five Chinese military officers on charges of breaking into large US corporations. A year later, the US and China announced an agreement at the White House not to steal each other’s intellectual property or trade secrets for commercial gain.
However, in the years since, the US has continued to bring charges against China related to hacking and espionage. It accused Chinese hackers of targeting companies developing vaccines for the coronavirus and of launching a massive digital attack on Microsoft Exchange email server software, while also blacklisting a series of Chinese companies.
In his speech, Wray recounted the case of a Chinese intelligence officer convicted of economic espionage for targeting an advanced GE engine that China was working to copy.
But there are also some obstacles. Although the FBI director mentioned Monday night that the office was working to protect research and academic innovation at American colleges and universities, he did not discuss the China Initiative. The country was criticized a lot.
That Justice Department effort was created in 2018 to combat economic espionage and protect against research theft, but critics have accused investigators of scrutinizing the data. researchers and professors on the basis of ethnicity and devalue academic collaboration. Earlier this month, prosecutors dropped a fraud case against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, saying they could no longer meet their burden of proof.
The department is in the process of reviewing the fate of the China Initiative and is expected to announce the results soon.
___
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
