Biden pick for DNI says China is an adversary on certain issues
Avril Haines, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, said during her Senate confirmation hearing that China is an adversary on certain issues.
Video Transcript
- Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to start building off of what the chairman said in his opening comments, that for, I would argue, a number of decades, we had a bipartisan consensus about China, that the more they came into the world order, the closer they were-- would move to some level of international norms. I'll be the first to acknowledge I was part of that consensus. And I think I was wrong.
This committee over the years, under both the Obama administration and the Trump administration, has seen China move extraordinarily aggressively. The chairman made reference to-- the reference to influence, American policy makers. We see them move aggressively militarily. We see them move aggressively economically. I've been particularly concerned about their efforts to dominate new technologies.
And we've seen them use tools from stealing intellectual property to treating their own people extraordinarily poorly, whether they be Uighurs or the people of Hong Kong. So I think it is important that we are clear eyed about China. I do think it's important as well to recognize that our beef is not with the Chinese people, but with this Chinese Communist Party. So I want to just ask you straight out, Ms. Haines, is China, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, an adversary of the United States?
AVRIL HAINES: Thank you, Vice Chairman. I couldn't agree more with the priority that you're attaching to China and the need, I think, for the intelligence community to focus on this issue. I think in the context of China, China is adversarial and an adversary on some issues. And in other issues, we try to cooperate with them, whether in the context of climate change or other things.
And ultimately, the frame that the president-elect has identified for thinking about this is as a global competitor. But I think that doesn't, to your point, in any way mitigate the fact that when it comes to espionage or a variety of areas that I'll be focused on if I am confirmed in the director of national intelligence, they are an adversary, and that we have to work on those issues, in particular countering their illegal, unfair, aggressive actions in these spaces.
