China is waging a quiet 'cold war' against US, says senior CIA expert

Aspen: ‘China has initiated a cold war to replace the United States, which is the most powerful country in the world. However, this cold war is not like the one that took place between the United States and the USSR. China is not interested in indulging in an open war with the United States. Nevertheless, the Xi Jinping-lead Communist government is using all its might to displace the United States,’ warned a senior expert on Asia from CIA, the US intelligence agency.

Michael Collins, the Deputy Assistant Director of the CIA’s East Asia Mission Centre issued this warning in one of the security conferences. Collins, known as the subject expert in the Asia division of the CIA clarified that this cold war initiated by China against the United States is of an entirely different nature from the US-USSR cold war and the two cannot be compared. Collins emphasised that “the actual Chinese policies are different from the ones that are being projected. China has made all the necessary preparations to replace the United States as the most powerful nation in the world”. He said that “the Chinese government is using all of its sources and might to ensure this happens”, while he cautioned that “the United States needs to beware of the Chinese tactics”.

Michael Collins claimed that “despite all this, China is not interested in direct confrontation with the United States and wants to achieve waging a quiet cold war against the United States without any propaganda”. At the same time, referring to the militarisation of the islands in the South China Sea, Collins pointed out that “these clearly indicate the Chinese tactics and planned movements. The Chinese moves in the South China Sea are in similar line to that of Russia which attached Crimea, which was then a part of Ukraine, to itself. This region may turn out to be the Crimea of the East”, warned Michael Collins.

While the warning from Collins is not the first, many US diplomats and senior officials are also issuing similar warnings against China. Christopher Wray, the Director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI has also said that there is a major threat to the United States from China. The activities of the Chinese intelligence agencies cannot be ignored because the root source of the financial fraud in as many as 50 US states could be traced to China, was the shocking claim put forward by Wray.

Dan Coats, the Director of US National Intelligence has demanded that the United States take a strong stand against China who is responsible for stealing sensitive and confidential information available with the US industry. Susan Thornton, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs has pointed out that the thousands of Chinese students in the US universities can also pose a strong challenge. Thornton claimed that China cannot be treated just as a footnote after Russia while considering the threats to the United States, as China has become a measurable threat to the country.

China has rapidly made enormous progress in the cyber and artificial intelligence sector. It is second in the world in terms of defence spending. It has the largest army and their Airforce is at number three in the world. Chinese navy has 300 warships and 60 submarines, informed the Former Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence (USDI), Marcel Lettre. The senior US officials are suggesting in different ways that the threat from China, who holds such military might, should be taken seriously by the United States, virtually endorsing the aggressive stance taken by the Trump administration against China.