China's espionage, intellectual property theft 'greatest threat' to US: FBI

China is targeting its nationals living abroad, coercing their return, and it is working to compromise US coronavirus research, says FBI chief.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray has said that acts of espionage and theft by China's government pose the "greatest long-term threat" to the future of the US.

Speaking to the Hudson Institute in Washington, Wray described a multi-pronged disruption campaign. the BBC reported on Wednesday.

He said China had begun targeting Chinese nationals living abroad, coercing their return, and was working to compromise US coronavirus research.

"The stakes could not be higher," Wray said, adding: "China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world's only superpower by any means necessary," he added.

In a nearly hour-long speech on Tuesday, the FBI Director outlined a stark picture of Chinese interference, a far-reaching campaign of economic espionage, data and monetary theft and illegal political activities, using bribery and blackmail to influence US policy.

"We've now reached a point where the FBI is now opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours," Wray said. "Of the nearly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China."

He said that Chinese President Xi Jinping had spearheaded a programme called "Fox Hunt", geared at Chinese nationals living abroad seen as threats to the Chinese government.

"We're talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China's extensive human rights violations," he said. "The Chinese government wants to force them to return to China, and China's tactics to accomplish that are shocking."

He continued: "When it couldn't locate one Fox Hunt target, the Chinese government sent an emissary to visit the target's family here in the United States. The message they said to pass on? The target had two options: return to China promptly, or commit suicide."

This is not the first time FBI Director Christopher Wray categorised China as a "top intelligence threat" for the US, but on Tuesday he ramped up the criticism by focussing on Beijing's "whole-of-state effort" to become the world's only superpower.

It clearly signals that Washington now sees Beijing not only as an aggressive adversary, but also an ambitious contender for global leadership.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak in the US, the Donald Trump administration has unleashed anger over China from its initial response to coronavirus, economic espionage to Hong Kong's new national security law.

Wray's remarks are among a series of hard-hitting speeches by senior US officials on the topic.

The Trump administration says it's now time to wake up from the 40 years of policy failures with regard to China, while critics see this as an attempt to deflect attention from the president own failures in office and to increase his chances of winning re-election.