US intelligence chief nominee views China as greatest threat

China is the greatest threat that the US faces, President Donald Trump's pick to be the director of national intelligence said on Tuesday, as he accused Beijing of trying to supplant free marketplace standards with authoritarian values.

John Ratcliffe during his confirmation hearing for the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) said that if confirmed he would look to shift resources in the office to ensure his team was doing enough to combat Beijing's rising power and the threats that it poses to the US national security.

I view China as the greatest threat actor right now, Ratcliffe said.

If confirmed by the Senate, Ratcliff would head America's 17 spy agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I mean look at where we are with respect to COVID-19 and the role that China plays, the race to 5G, cybersecurity issues all roads lead to China," he said.

When you look at the initiatives that they have, the Belt and Road, the Made in China 2025, all of the military-civil fusion initiative where they literally want, by law, Chinese companies to collect intelligence, these are all spokes of the same initiative, he said.

We very clearly don't want an authoritarian regime like the Chinese Communist Party's setting standards in the world market place, he added.

Whereas, with belt in road, they want to dominate all of the hubs for trade routes and telecommunications. All of these things are China trying to essentially supplant free marketplace standards and values like liberty and free speech and all the things that we have with authoritarian values that are reflected in some of the things that are happening in this COVID-19 pandemic, Ratcliffe said.

The Trump administration has for weeks blasted China for its role in the spread of the virus, saying officials in Beijing withheld essential information that could have helped other countries prepare for an outbreak.

President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continue to push the theory that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan.

Responding to a question, Ratcliffe expressed concerned over China's investment in quantum computing.

If China gets to quantum first, we are in trouble. When we look at investments and looking forward in the challenges that we face in the fact that China is investing more towards those technologies than the United States presently, we need to rebalance, he said.