NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Former Attorney General Bill Barr warned that China was the “biggest threat” facing the United States, warning that Beijing had a “highly aggressive plan” to seize “key” technologies of the future.
During an interview with Fox News Digital about his new memoir One Damn Thing After Another, in which he details the long-term national security challenges facing the US, Barr warned that the Chinese will remain a “huge problem” for the US.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE: FORMER AG BARR SAYS US ‘CAN’T ALLOW THIS TO EScalATE INTO A NUCLEAR WAR’
“China is the biggest threat the country faces, not only militarily — because they are building a very capable military — but also technologically,” Barr said, noting that the United States was “the world’s technological leader.” and people are used to it.” .”
Barr told Fox News that the Biden administration, in its efforts to combat the threat posed by China, must “focus on the fact that it is this leadership that makes us so prosperous, creates every opportunity for future generations, and keeps us safe.”
Attorney General William Barr during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Dec. 21, 2020. (Michael Reynolds/Poole/AFP via Getty Images)
“The Chinese have a comprehensive, very aggressive plan to take control of all the key technologies of the future, such as 5G communications, robotics, artificial intelligence – all technologies that will become key in the coming years,” Barr said.
Barr said that China has already “grabbed to high positions largely thanks to the theft of secrets.”
“They are very hardworking and capable people,” Barr said. “This will be a huge challenge for us going forward.”
Barr, who served as Attorney General under former Presidents Trump and George W. Bush, began his career as an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency and set his sights on becoming a “China expert” at a young age.
In his book, Barr wrote that he had “a clear sense of direction” in life.
BARR SAYS BIDEN ‘SWEETED’ US ECONOMY BY ‘STOPPING’ ENERGY PRODUCTION BEFORE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Barr, as a student at Horace Mann High School in New York, told a college counselor that his career goal was to become director of the CIA.
In his memoirs, Barr notes that he wanted to “make a career in intelligence” and said his strategy was to become “an attractive candidate by becoming an expert on China”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach attend the closing ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at the National Stadium in Beijing, China, 20 February 2022. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“My focus on China, again, was largely pragmatic,” Barr wrote in his memoirs. “I didn’t have a deep-seated attraction to China as a subject of academic study.”
Barr wrote that, in his opinion, “since Russia has long been the main adversary of the United States, there were many Russian experts” and called China “a threat to the future.”
This week, the intelligence community released its annual threat assessment, which looks at the global threats facing the United States for 2022, including Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and others.
Regarding China, the intelligence community said the United States and its allies “will face an increasingly complex and interconnected global security environment marked by a growing specter of great power rivalry and conflict, while collective, transnational threats to all nations and entities will be contend for our attention and limited resources.”
The assessment says that China is increasingly becoming “a near-peer competitor, challenging the United States in multiple arenas — especially economically, militarily and technologically — and seeking to change global norms and potentially threaten its neighbors.”
Attorney General William Barr and President Trump in the Oval Office in 2019. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
And as many say Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has emboldened China about its quest to take over Taiwan, the intelligence community has warned that Beijing is using a coordinated approach to force neighbors to “concede” to its preferences, “including its territorial and maritime claims.” and asserting sovereignty over Taiwan.”
“Beijing will pressure Taiwan to move towards unification and respond to what it sees as increased U.S.-Taiwan engagement,” IC said in a statement. “We expect friction to escalate as China continues to ramp up military activity around the island and Taiwan’s leaders resist pressure from Beijing to move towards unification.”
The assessment added that “China’s control of Taiwan is likely to disrupt global semiconductor chip supply chains as Taiwan dominates manufacturing.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“In the South China Sea, Beijing will continue to use an increasing number of air, naval and maritime law enforcement agencies to intimidate competing claimants and show that China has effective control over the disputed areas,” the assessment said. “China is also putting pressure on Japan over disputed areas in the East China Sea.”
The IC also assessed that China poses “the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber-espionage threat to U.S. government and private sector networks.”
“Cyber-harassment of China and the export of related technologies increase the threat of attacks on the US homeland, the suppression of American web content that Beijing considers a threat to its control, and the spread of technology-based authoritarianism around the world,” the report says.