China Poses ‘Biggest Geopolitical Test’ to U.S., C.I.A. Nominee Says

“Today’s landscape is increasingly complicated and competitive. It’s a world where familiar threats persist from terrorism and nuclear proliferation to an aggressive Russia, a provocative North Korea and a hostile Iran. But it’s also a world of new challenges, in which climate change and global health insecurity are taking a heavy toll on the American people, in which cyberthreats pose an ever greater risk to our society, and in which an adversarial, predatory Chinese leadership poses our biggest geopolitical test. If confirmed, four crucial and interrelated priorities will shape my approach to leading C.I.A. — China, technology, people and partnerships. As President Biden has underscored, outcompeting China will be key to our national security in the decades ahead. That will require a long-term, clear-eyed bipartisan strategy underpinned by domestic renewal and solid intelligence.” “We’ve seen evidence now not just of agency personnel, but State Department personnel and others become victims of mysterious attacks. It was for a while called the Havana Syndrome, and a number of us have been quite concerned that we still don’t know the source of those attacks. We still don’t potentially have a full medical diagnosis, and even though we have put in into law in the last three intel authorization bills, the ability for the C.I.A. director to provide enhanced benefits to those individuals, you know, the kind of first-rate quality health care and compensation they need and deserve, we’re not sure that’s really taken place.” “I will have no higher priority than taking care of people, of colleagues and their families. And I do commit to you that if I’m confirmed, I will make it an extraordinarily high priority to get to the bottom of who’s responsible for the attacks that you just described. And to ensure that colleagues and their families get the care that they deserve.”