China seeks to become world's next superpower, using espionage to dethrone US: Report

China seeks to become the world's next superpower, dethroning the United States and tearing apart the rules-based international system that American and its allies have built since the end of World War 2, according to a report published in The National Interest.

In an opinion piece in The National Interest, Stavros Atlamazoglou wrote, "the US faces myriad conventional and unconventional threats from Russia, North Korea, Iran, terrorist organisations, climate change, and pandemics are just some of them. Yet, China unquestionably rises to the top as the primary danger to US national security."

According to the report, "to achieve the world's next superpower, Beijing primarily goes after economic, industrial, and technological targets that will offer a competitive advantage to the Chinese economic and technological sector. Whether it's stolen blueprints of American (and foreign, including Russian) aircraft, such as the F-35 or F-22, or missile technology, China is using espionage to fuel its economic furnaces."

"These intelligence operations pose a grave threat to US national security and economic prosperity." the report added.

Citing an interview of Mike Orlando, the Acting Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Atlamazoglou wrote that "Chinese espionage costs the US between USD 200 to USD 600 billion a year in stolen intellectual property. And this is something that has been happening for the past two decades, which would mean a loss of USD 4 trillion, on the low end, to USD 12 trillion, on the high end; an astounding loss either way."

"The holistic and comprehensive threat to the United States, posed by the Communist Party of China is an existential threat. And it is the most complex, pernicious, aggressive, and strategic threat our nation has ever faced," Bill Evanina, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, recently told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Atlamazoglou further stated that in order to surpass the US, China needs to continue its economic growth and technologically outmatch the US and the rest of the West. However, instead of relying on innovation and invention, China prefers to "steal technology and then copy it".

China is targeting and stealing "transport technologies," such as quantum computing, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and 5G. Although there is a military application for all of these technologies, the commercial and economic value is equally important to Beijing in its bid to become a superpower, Atlamazoglou added.

(ANI)

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