A top CIA expert on Asia says China is waging a "quiet kind of cold war" against the US, using all its resources to try to replace America as the leading power in the world.
Beijing doesn't want to go to war, he said, but the current communist government under President Xi Jingping is subtly working on multiple fronts to undermine the US in ways that are different than the more well-publicised activities being employed by Russia.
"I would argue ... that what they're waging against us is fundamentally a cold war - a cold war not like we saw during THE Cold War (between the US and the Soviet Union) but a cold war by definition," Michael Collins, deputy assistant director of the CIA's East Asia mission centre, said at the Aspen Security Forum.
Rising US-China tension goes beyond the trade dispute playing out in a tariff tit-for-tat between the two nations.
There is concern over China's pervasive efforts to steal business secrets and details about high-tech research being conducted in the US.
The Chinese military is expanding and being modernised and the US, as well as other nations, have complained about China's construction of military outposts on islands in the South China Sea.
"I would argue that it's the Crimea of the East," Collins said, referring to Russia's brash annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
Collins' comments track warnings about China's rising influence issued by others who spoke earlier this week at the security conference. The alarm bells come at a time when Washington needs China's help in ending its nuclear stand-off with North Korea.
On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said China represents the broadest and most significant counterintelligence threat America faces. He said the FBI has economic espionage investigations in all 50 states that can be traced back to China.
National Intelligence Director Dan Coats also warned of rising Chinese aggression. In particular, he said, the US must stand strong against China's effort to steal business secrets and academic research.
Marcel Lettre, former undersecretary of defence for intelligence, said China also is pursuing advances in cyber, artificial intelligence, engineering and technology, counter-space, anti-satellite capabilities and hypersonic glide weapons.
China's weapons developments are emphasising the need to have a dialogue with Beijing, Franklin Miller, former senior director at the National Security Council, said.
"We need to try to engage," he said.
"My expectations for successful engagement are medium-low, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try."
Australian Associated Press
