China Remains US’s ‘Unparalleled Priority’ Amid Beijing’s Increasing Aggression: DNI Haines

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning worldwide threats, on Capitol Hill March 8, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the U.S. intelligence community’s “unparalleled priority” as the regime in Beijing draws increasing pushback over its aggression toward Taiwan and its relationship with Russia, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines told lawmakers on March 8.

“The CCP represents both the leading and most consequential threat to U.S. national security and leadership globally in its intelligence-specific ambitions and capabilities, making it for us our most serious and consequential intelligence rival,” she said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats, and as the U.S. intelligence community released the unclassified version of its annual threat assessment report (pdf).

Expansion at US Expense

Haines warned that China’s aggressiveness, particularly toward Taiwan and its Western allies, is accelerating as the communist regime seeks to maintain its ascendancy on the world stage.

“[China], which is increasingly challenging the United States economically, technologically, politically, and militarily around the world, remains our unparalleled priority,” Haines said in her opening statement.

However, she warned that the CCP is still seeking to expand its influence and is “increasingly convinced that they can only do so at the expense of U.S. power and influence and by using coordinated whole-of-government tools to demonstrate strength and compel neighbors to acquiesce to its preferences.” She cited China’s ongoing territorial disputes with nations such as India, Japan, and its ongoing aggression toward Taiwan, the self-ruled island the CCP claims as its own.

Haines listed a litany of China’s overarching policy goals: the continued expansion of its military and nuclear capacity, research and development of counter-space weapons to challenge burgeoning U.S. control of the upper atmosphere, and others that seek to unseat the United States from the top of the world stage.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s primary foreign policy goal is “to reshape global governance in line with its preferences and governance standards that support its monopoly of power within China,” she said.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the committee’s chairman and one of the chamber’s more moderate Democrats, echoed that warning about Chinese ascendancy, saying in his opening statement that the CCP recently passed the point of becoming a “near-peer competitor with the United States.”

Sen. Mark Warner (R-Va.), then-vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, speaks to media in the Senate subway area of the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 28, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Xi Takes Aim at US

Xi and the Chinese regime have become increasingly aggressive, Haines said, pointing to the Chinese leader’s remarks on the sidelines at this week’s opening of the National People’s Congress, the regime’s rubber-stamp legislature.

Xi’s March 6 remarks were notable because he directly referenced the United States in blaming Washington-led efforts for his nation’s economic challenges. Xi typically avoids direct references in such instances.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping applauds during the opening of the 3rd Session of the 12th National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 5, 2015. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

“Western countries—led by the U.S.—have implemented all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development,” Xi said, according to a readout from state-media outlet Xinhua.

Haines cited that speech as a cause for alarm, saying it indicated that China is losing faith in reaching a settlement with the United States through diplomacy.

“Xi’s speech this week was the most public indirect criticism that we’ve seen from him to date and probably reflects growing pessimism in Beijing about China’s relationship with the United States, as well as Xi’s growing worries about the trajectory of China’s domestic economic development and indigenous technology, innovation challenges that he now blames on the United States.”

Xi was seeking to present rising tensions with Washington as being the fault of the United States rather than the CCP, Haines said.

China Still Seeks to Avoid Escalation

Still, Haines also reported intelligence officials’ assessment that Beijing doesn’t wish to actively alienate the United States, as this would risk further sanctions even as the country’s economic growth has begun to plateau.

Intelligence officials suspect that China will continue to have trouble kindling growth, she said.

Specifically, China is having issues continuing to grow economically “because China’s era of rapid catch-up growth is ending and structural issues such as dead demographics, inequality, overreliance on investment, and suppressed consumption remain,” Haines said.

Notwithstanding China’s blustering over the U.S. military’s destruction of an espionage balloon over the continental United States, the CCP continues to believe that “it benefits most by preventing a spiraling of tensions and by preserving stability in its relationship with the United States,” she said.

Of particular concern to the United States is that China may seek to take advantage of the international confusion caused by the Russia–Ukraine war to attempt its long-held goal of taking over Taiwan. Intelligence officials also worry that China may continue to make overtures to Russia, an alliance that could be catastrophic for U.S. interests if it comes to fruition.

Congress Turns Up Heat on China

Recently, U.S. lawmakers of both parties have taken an increasingly aggressive stance on the CCP, particularly following the violation of U.S. airspace by a Chinese espionage balloon.

In February, both chambers of Congress voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that condemned the CCP for the territorial violation, a rare show of unity in an otherwise divided Congress.

The Senate hearing occurred as House members begin their investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent weeks, the FBI director and the Department of Energy each concluded that it was “likely” that the pandemic resulted from a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

Warner took the opportunity to reference the lower chamber’s hearing and offered his endorsement.

“Let’s be clear, despite China’s denials, it is entirely fair for us to ask whether a virus that has killed at least 6.8 million people so far might have been accidentally released from a lab.”