China `more brazen` than ever; Threat to our economic security, says FBI director

`There is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China,` said FBI chief Christopher Wray.

Washington: Stressing that threats posed by China in the United States is "more brazen" than ever before, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said that China is trying to steal American innovation and technology than all other nations.

"When we tally up what we see in our investigations--over 2,000 of which are focused on the Chinese government trying to steal our information and technology--there is just no country that presents a broader threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than China," Wray said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Monday.

"Here in the US, they unleash a massive, sophisticated hacking program that is bigger than those of every other major nation combined," he said.

Speaking about the threat posed by the Chinese government in the US, Wary said, the "threat posed by the Chinese government at home to our economic security and to our freedoms. Our freedom of speech, of conscience; our freedom to elect and be served by our representatives without foreign meddling; our freedom to prosper when we toil and invent."

"I`ve spoken a lot about this threat since I became FBI Director. But I want to focus on it here, because in many ways it`s reached a new level--more brazen, more damaging than ever before, and it`s vital--vital--that all of us focus on that threat together."

Wray also stressed that his speech concerned the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party posing the threat the FBI is addressing, and not the Chinese people.

"I do want to be clear that the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party pose the threat we`re focused on countering--not the Chinese people, and certainly not Chinese Americans, who are themselves frequently victims of the Chinese government`s lawless aggression. Protecting them from the Chinese government is top of mind for us, too."

FBI Director highlighted the recent case of the Chinese government stealing American secrets. He said, "A recent case from Ohio is a great illustration of the Chinese government`s multiprong strategy for stealing our valuable secrets."

"This past November, a Chinese intelligence officer named Xu Yanjun was convicted of economic espionage in Cincinnati. He was part of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, which is one of their spy services, and he was in a unit responsible for stealing aviation-related secrets."

"In 2015, the Chinese government publicly promised to stop handing hacked US technology to Chinese companies, but their cybertheft program kept going strong. And in the years since, they`ve hit ever more companies and workers."

"We`ve seen small companies developing important medicines ransacked. We`ve seen big managed service providers remotely managing IT services for thousands of other businesses hacked, so the Chinese government could hijack their trusted connections with their customers and hack those companies, too," he added.

Wray further stated that stealing innovation isn`t the only way the Chinese government shows their disregard for the international rule of law. Despite this China is targeting the people inside the US.

"The Chinese government is increasingly targeting people inside the U.S. for personal and political retribution--undercutting the freedoms that our Constitution and laws promise."

"The kinds of people the Chinese Communist Party tends to go after are not those that a responsible government would make their enemies--refugees, dissidents, and Uyghurs--people with their own ideas, who speak or worship as their conscience dictates," he said.