Beyond stealing technology, Wray said, China is now taking steps to protect its economy from any future sanctions if it tries to seize Taiwan by force, drawing lessons from Western efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
“We’ve seen China look for ways to insulate its economy against potential sanctions, and try to protect themselves from harm if they do anything to irritate the international community,” Ray said. “In our world, we call this kind of behavior evidence.”
He cited recent estimates from a Yale University study that Western companies lost $59 billion as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
“And if China invades Taiwan, we can see the same thing again, on a much larger scale,” Ray said.
McCallum drew attention to the fact that Wednesday’s event was the first time that FBI and MI5 leaders had held a joint public event. The two agencies have close relationships, with MI5 officers serving in the FBI and with FBI agents working in MI5.
For decades, companies and universities have sought access to the growing Chinese market as a way to expand their businesses. But the danger also grew.
“The widespread Western assumption that increased prosperity within China and greater outreach to the West will automatically lead to greater political freedom has been clearly proven wrong,” McCallum said. “But the Chinese Communist Party is interested in our democratic, media, and legal systems. Not to emulate them, unfortunately, but to use them for their own gain.”
Wray cited recent FBI investigations into Chinese intelligence activity, including an attempt to target a US congressional candidate in New York for his connections to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests that were crushed by the Chinese military. He said the FBI has also caught people working for Chinese companies trying to dig fields in rural areas of the United States to try to get access to genetically modified seeds.
McCallum said MI-5 is now conducting seven times more investigations than it did in 2018 into Chinese activity in the UK.
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