CIA Launching Massive New Initiative To Combat Communist China In Preparation For Years-Long Battle

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is launching a new center focused solely on combatting communist China and Chinese spying against the U.S., according to the agency’s director.

CIA Director William Burns said during remarks to personnel this week that the new China Mission Center was being launched to “further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government.”

The Washington Post reported:

Describing an effort that will enlist every corner of the spy agency, a senior CIA official drew comparisons to the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, but said China was a more formidable and complicated rival given the size of its economy, which is completely entwined with that of the United States, and its own global reach.

Just as it did against the Soviets, the CIA will deploy more officers, linguists, technicians and specialists in countries around the world to gather intelligence and counter China’s interests, said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to more fully describe Burns’s remarks.