Media Wire

CIA creates China-focused mission center

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has announced the formation of a new mission center which will focus on China to confront alleged threats emanating from Beijing. The Biden administration has named China as a top foreign policy priority and a global competitor to the United States.

In a statement on Thursday, the CIA said the China Mission Center was formed “to address the global challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China that cuts across all of the agency’s mission areas”.

The group is just one of fewer than a dozen mission centers operated by the CIA and will hold weekly, director-level meetings meant to better coordinate the agency’s strategy towards China.

It will address global issues critical to US competitiveness, the CIA added, such as emerging technologies, economic security, climate change and health challenges.

CIA Director William Burns stated the new mission center “will further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government”.

“Throughout our history, CIA has stepped up to meet whatever challenges come our way,” Burns said in a statement on Thursday, adding, “And now facing our toughest geopolitical test in a new era of great power rivalry, CIA will be at the forefront of this effort.”
The announcement comes amid a wider prioritisation by the administration of President Joe Biden on countering Beijing.

In June, Biden announced a new task force at the Pentagon to assess and respond to Beijing’s military challenge.

Relations between the two superpowers have been particularly strained in recent years. However, a US official noted on Wednesday that Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to hold a virtual meeting by the end of this year.

China is considered an especially difficult challenge for the US intelligence community given the insularity of its Communist Party leadership, its large military and security services, and its development in advanced technologies that can counter spying.

Underscoring the challenge, the CIA recently sent a memo to its agents around the world admitting that it was experiencing a shortage of informants from other countries, with some captured or killed, The New York Times and the Washington Post reported.

The CIA and FBI recently unearthed dozens of cases of China recruiting US citizens to supply it classified or corporate proprietary information, as well as instances of Chinese citizens working in the US as intelligence collectors.

The CIA also announced on Thursday that it will designate a chief technology officer for the first time as part of a broader effort to implement advanced computing methods at the agency.

IFP Media Wire

Reports and views published in the Media Wire section have been retrieved from other news agencies and websites, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website. The IFP may change the headlines of the reports in a bid to make them compatible with its own style of covering Iran News, and does not make any changes to the content. The source and URL of all reports and news stories are mentioned at the bottom of each article.

Recent Posts

Israeli Parliament passes law to deport families of Palestinians involved in attacks against settlers

The Knesset (Israel’s parliament) passed a new controversial law Thursday that allows the deportation of…

10 hours ago

Trump’s team seeks postponing Ukraine’s NATO membership for at least 2 decades: Report

One idea within US President-elect Donald Trump's team for ending Russia's war involves delaying Ukraine's…

10 hours ago

Ex-Iranian MP: Trump’s election similar to Taliban return to power

A former Iranian Parliament member likened Donald Trump re-election as the US president to the…

14 hours ago

Iranian analyst deplores failure to restore JCPOA following Trump re-election

A veteran Iranian journalist and political analyst says Iran had almost four years since US…

16 hours ago

Biden rushing to deliver billions in remaining aid to Ukraine ahead of Trump’s inauguration

The administration of Joe Biden is planning to rush the delivery of the remaining $6…

16 hours ago

Ayatollah Khamenei: Resistance will definitely emerge victorious

The Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has paid tribute to the…

16 hours ago