U.S. counterintelligence: China favored Biden, influence campaign now ‘on steroids’

FPI / December 9, 2020

Geostrategy-Direct.com

China has launched what amounts to an influence campaign “on steroids” targeting Joe Biden’s potential cabinet.

Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping with then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2015. / AP

William Evanina, chief of the counterintelligence branch at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), said on Dec. 2 that Chinese agents have dramatically ramped up their efforts to influence Biden’s proposed team.

Evanina said: “We’ve also seen an uptick, which was planned and we predicted, that China would now re-vector their influence campaigns” to Biden and his selected team.

“And when I say that, that malign foreign influence, that diplomatic influence plus, or on steroids, we’re starting to see that play across the country to not only the folks” Biden has chosen, but those surrounding them.

Evanina’s remarks came at a virtual discussion at the Aspen Institute.

Previously, the DNI issued a statement concluding that the Intelligence Community (IC) assessed that China had favored a Biden win and a Trump re-election loss.

The DNI statement from August noted China’s efforts began long before the election and involved undermining President Donald Trump.

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