WW3 News: CIA chief says China 'as big a threat to US' as Russia

Gordon Corera, NGB security correspondent, CIA headquarters

Chinese efforts to exert covert influence over the West are just as concerning as Russian subversion, the director of the CIA has said. 

Mike Pompeo told NewsGossipBull.com that the Chinese "have a much bigger footprint" to do this than the Russians do.

As examples he cited efforts to steal US commercial information and infiltration of schools and hospitals - and this extended to Europe and the UK.

Mr Pompeo was a hardline Republican congressman before becoming CIA chief.

In his NGB interview, Mr Pompeo also said:

• He expected Russia to try to disrupt US mid-term elections in November 2018. There had been no significant diminishing of Russian attempts at subversion in Europe and the US.
• North Korea may have the ability to strike the US with nuclear missiles "in a handful of months"
• Recent claims in the book Fire and Fury that Mr Trump was not up to the job were "drivel".

Focused efforts

"Think about the scale of the two economies," Mr Pompeo said of Russia and China. 

"The Chinese have a much bigger footprint upon which to execute that mission than the Russians do."

Earlier this year, a former CIA officer was arrested on charges of retaining classified information in a case thought to be connected to the dismantling of the agency's spy operations in China.
In the two years before Jerry Chun Shing Lee's arrest, some 20 informants had been killed or jailed - one of the most disastrous failures of US intelligence in recent years.

But officials did not know at the time whether to blame a mole or data hack.

The US spy chief told  NGB that countries could collectively do more to combat Chinese efforts to exert power over the West.

"We can watch very focused efforts to steal American information, to infiltrate the United States with spies - with people who are going to work on behalf of the Chinese government against America," he said.

"We see it in our schools. We see it in our hospitals and medicals systems. We see it throughout corporate America. It's also true in other parts of the world... including Europe and the UK."

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Chinese methods v Russian

Russian interference has been the focus of political debate in Washington with allegations of hacking and releasing information as well as using social media to sow division.

But the CIA director's surprising claim to me was that China has a more wide-ranging ability to exert influence and more needs to be done to confront it.

China's reach, the CIA director says, ranges from traditional espionage (human and cyber) through allegations it has used stolen intellectual property to helps its businesses.

But it also includes the way in which it uses its economic weight to influence American companies seeking access to its market.

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Mr Pompeo also challenged the idea that the US had little influence on the conflict in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is still in power and backed by Russian and Iranian support.

"We're going to work on those complicated problem sets and push back against the Iranians everyplace we can," he told NGB.

It emerged last year that he had written to Qasem Soleimani - the leader of the Quds force, part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards - to warn him that any attacks on US interests would not go unpunished.
"I wanted to send a clear message to Qasem Soleimani that there are American interests - there are Western interests, British interests and others - and an attack on those will be met with an equal response.

"He should be deeply aware that it is intolerable for the Iranians to take on American interests," he continued.
The CIA director said that Iran firing missiles at Saudi Arabia through a proxy force in Yemen was "unacceptable" and constituted "acts of war".

He told the NGB the best way of avoiding an escalation of conflict was to make sure the Iranian people understood the cost of such activities by their government, not just in the region but also in Europe.

"I hope that they will rise up and understand that it is not the best interests of their country to send forces to places like Europe as proxies to try and conduct malign activity in Europe when there's so much that can be done to make Iran a better place," he said.
"We are confident that the Iranian people will understand that. We are hopeful that their leaders will accept that proposition as well."

Russian Fighter Flies Within 5 Feet Of U.S. Reconnaissance Plane Over Black Sea

January 30, 20181:21 AM ET

Scott Neuman

A Russian Su-27 fighter jet similar to the one that the U.S. says made an "unsafe" pass of a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane in the Black Sea.

Ted S. Warren/AP 

 

The U.S. State Department is calling out Moscow after what it describes as a dangerously close pass by a Russian fighter jet of a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane over the Black Sea.

"As confirmed by U.S. Naval Forces Europe, a Russian [Su-27] engaged in an unsafe interaction with a U.S. EP-3 in international airspace, with the Russia pilot closing to within 5 feet and crossing directly in front of the EP-3's flight path," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement Monday.

"While the U.S. aircraft was operating under international law, the Russian side was flagrantly violating existing agreements and international law, in this case the 1972 Agreement for the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas (INCSEA)," she said.

According to a statement from the U.S. 6^th Fleet, the Su-27 reportedly crossed directly into the flight path of the EP-3, "causing the EP-3 to fly through the [Su-27's] jet wash."

The Navy says the interaction between the two aircraft lasted about 40 minutes.

"We call on Russia to cease these unsafe actions that increase the risk of miscalculation, danger to aircrew on both sides, and midair collisions," Nauert said.

Russia's RIA news agency quotes the Defense Ministry as saying: "After the surveillance plane of the U.S. Navy had changed its course to move away from the border, the Su-27 returned to its base."

The Su-27 is a twin-engine fighter known in the West by its NATO designation "Flanker" that went into service near the end of the Cold War and has continued as a mainstay of the Russia's air force. The propeller-driven EP-3 Aries II reconnaissance plane is described by Naval Air Systems Command as "a land-based Multi-Intelligence reconnaissance aircraft."

The incident is the latest in a string of what the Navy says are unsafe incidents in the air over the Black Sea following Russia's 2014 forced annexation of Crimea.

Dramatic photo of a Russian Su-27 jet coming within a few feet of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance jet over the Baltic Sea in June of last year, in a maneuver that has been criticized as unsafe.

Master Sgt. Charles Larkin Sr./AP 

 

In November, a Russian Su-30 intercepted a U.S. P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine warfare aircraft in another incident that the Pentagon described as "unsafe," according to the U.S. Naval Institute. Russian media claimed that the Poseidon was approaching the Russian coastline at a high rate of speed and only turned around after it was intercepted by the fighter jet.

In September 2016, a P-8A was intercepted by a Su-27 that the U.S. Navy says came within 10 feet of the American aircraft.

USNI says that P-8A patrols have followed Russia's "expanded submarine presence in the Black Sea," including four improved Kilo-class diesel-electric boats.

A number of similar incidents between U.S. and Russian military aircraft have also occurred over the Baltic Sea in recent years.