China is likely to be the focus of global threats at the congressional hearing

The actions and intentions of the Chinese government are likely to be a central focus when top US intelligence leaders testify about global security threats this week, raising questions about Beijing’s potential plan to send lethal aid to Russia, and its role in obscuring the origins of the war. The COVID-19 pandemic and the target of the recently discovered surveillance balloon program, which has dramatically increased tensions with the United States

Annual hearings on threats around the world are held Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and Thursday before the House Intelligence Committee, and testimony from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA Director William Burns, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Director of the Security Agency Nationalist Gen. Paul Nakasone. and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lieutenant General Scott Perrier.

The hearings provide a rare opportunity for lawmakers and the public to hear directly from intelligence leaders, whose agencies do not give regular briefings and whose activities and budgets are partly or mostly classified.

Leaders’ testimony will coincide with the release of a comprehensive annual report on the intelligence community that serves as an unclassified record of national security priorities. Last few years appreciation — released before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine — said that “competition and potential conflict between nation-states continues to pose a serious threat to national security,” citing increasingly aggressive signals from Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang.

Sen. Angus King, R-Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a briefing to reporters Tuesday that he read this year’s report and found it “realistic.”

“My advice is not to read it right before bed,” King said.

Among the topics expected to come up in the hearings are the threat of nuclear proliferation, the risks of another global pandemic, current hotbeds of terrorism, and the increasingly destabilizing effects of climate change. Recent intelligence community reports about the possibility that COVID-19 was the result of a lab accident and the cause of a mysterious neurological illness known as Havana syndrome that has afflicted hundreds of US officials are also potential topics, as are the reauthorization of a controversial Section 702 surveillance program and the handling by government officials of classified documents. .

“I want to hear more than just China,” House Intelligence Committee member Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, said Tuesday at a virtual event hosted by The Washington Post. “Because we’ve become so focused on China, it’s possible that we haven’t focused as much as we used to on the other threats going on there.”

However, lawmakers from both parties are expected to focus many of their questions on the increasingly strained relationship between the United States and China, which Haines called last year an “unparalleled priority” and “a formidable challenge” for the intelligence community.

Intelligence chiefs have acknowledged that the Russian invasion of Ukraine — which began days before the hearings last year, and is now in its second year — has absorbed significant resources and attention. However, they have consistently said that China remains the greatest geopolitical challenge to the United States in the long run. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s effective consolidation of power and vague vision of his government’s decision-making processes have complicated the Biden administration’s efforts to improve its relationship with Beijing.

“In this kind of system, which is a very closed system of decision-making when nobody, you know, challenges the authority of their visions of an authoritarian leader, you can make some huge mistakes as well,” said Burns, the CIA director. Recent interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” adding that the agency has been working “hard” to gain insight into Xi’s thinking.

King, who grilled leaders last year about the intelligence community’s ability to assess a particular military’s will to fight — citing past flawed assessments of the fall of Kabul during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ability of the Ukrainians to fend off a Russian attack on Kiev — said that issue would be worth reconsidering amid the specter of an invasion. led by China to Taiwan.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence later said it would launch a review of society’s ability to assess the resilience of foreign militaries.

“It’s an issue that’s not going away. And as we’ve learned about Afghanistan and Ukraine, it’s one of the most important data points. It’s one of the hardest to measure, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” King said.

“As we talk about Taiwan, I think that’s a very relevant question that we have to ask Congress and the president, before making the final decisions about what level of commitment there should be,” he said.

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