FBI Director Christopher Wray said China is using cyber-intrusion techniques and bribing “trusted insiders” to steal U.S. intellectual property during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nextgov reported Tuesday. Wray said almost 50 percent of the FBI’s nearly 5,000 counterintelligence investigations are linked to China and that the bureau opens a China-related investigation every 10 hours.
“China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world’s only superpower by any means necessary,” Wray said Tuesday at a Hudson Institute-hosted event. “The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It’s a threat to our economic security—and by extension, to our national security.”
He noted that China is targeting U.S. agriculture, robotics, health care and aviation sectors using economic espionage as part of efforts to weaken the country’s economic dominance, leading to a 1,300 percent rise in China-related economic espionage cases in the past 10 years.
