US Intelligence Official Says China Increasing Efforts To Influence New Biden Administration, No Evidence Offered

The BBC is report­ing that accord­ing to a US intel­li­gence offi­cial, Chi­nese “agents” have stepped up efforts to influ­ence the incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden. The BBC report, how­ev­er, does not iden­ti­fy any spe­cif­ic evi­dence of such efforts:

Decem­ber 3„ 2020 Chi­nese agents have stepped up their efforts to influ­ence Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden’s incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion, a US intel­li­gence offi­cial has said. William Evan­i­na, from the US Office of the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence, said the Chi­nese were also focus­ing on peo­ple close to Mr Biden’s team. Mr Evan­i­na said it was an influ­ence cam­paign “on steroids”. Sep­a­rate­ly, a jus­tice depart­ment offi­cial said more than 1,000 sus­pect­ed Chi­nese agents had fled the US. In Wednes­day’s vir­tu­al dis­cus­sion at the Aspen Insti­tute think tank, Mr Evan­i­na, chief of the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence’s counter-intel­li­gence branch, said Chi­na had been attempt­ing to med­dle in the US efforts to devel­op a coro­n­avirus vac­cine and recent Amer­i­can elec­tions. He con­tin­ued: “We’ve also seen an uptick, which was planned and we pre­dict­ed, that Chi­na would now re-vec­tor their influ­ence cam­paigns to the new [Biden] administration.“And when I say that, that malign for­eign influ­ence, that diplo­mat­ic influ­ence plus, or on steroids, we’re start­ing to see that play across the coun­try to not only the folks start­ing in the new admin­is­tra­tion, but those who are around those folks in the new administration.

Read the rest here.

One US media report char­ac­ter­izes William Evan­i­na as a career pro­fes­sion­al whose detractors:

.…have described him as too eager to please every­one in the room, espe­cial­ly his supe­ri­ors, and say he has failed a lit­mus test in how he has por­trayed the elec­tion inter­fer­ence efforts.

Point­ing to the inher­ent­ly politi­cized nature of these issues, US media report­ed last week that a Chi­nese pro­fes­sor’s speech claim­ing Chi­nese influ­ence over Biden had been delet­ed from Chi­nese social media after it had been cit­ed by US right-wing media. Accord­ing to a Bloomberg report:

Decem­ber 10, 2020 A Chi­nese professor’s speech boast­ing about Beijing’s influ­ence over Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden was removed from the country’s social media plat­forms after going viral in the U.S., under­scor­ing how sen­si­tive ties between the world’s two biggest economies are after strife under Don­ald Trump. The speech by Di Dong­sheng, a pro­fes­sor of inter­na­tion­al rela­tions at Ren­min Uni­ver­si­ty, was deliv­ered in Novem­ber, and boost­ed Mon­day after Fox News host Tuck­er Carl­son talked about the remarks and Trump tweet­ed a clip. Di, who was speak­ing at an annu­al event host­ed by the nation­al­is­tic Chi­nese web­site Guan Video, bragged about Beijing’s sway over Wall Street and Biden’s son Hunter and said: “Biden is back! Our old game is back

It should also be not­ed that Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, is cur­rent­ly under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion con­cern­ing tax and mon­ey laun­der­ing issues, prin­ci­pal­ly relat­ing to his busi­ness deal­ings in China.

In late Octo­ber, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that var­i­ous experts have con­clud­ed that Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions pose a greater long-term threat to the US than Russ­ian efforts.