#China is biggest US threat, engaged in rampant espionage, says FBI Director Wray

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday described China’s Communist government as the biggest threat to the US — revealing his agency has more than 2,000 active investigations which trace back to the shadowy regime.

In an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Wray revealed there had been a 1,300 percent increase in espionage investigations into the Chinese region in the past decade and said the party was actively spying on Fortune 100 countries and trying to influence US politics.

“There’s no country that presents a broader or more comprehensive threat to America’s innovation, to our economic security and to our democratic ideas,” he said.

Wray described a chilling effort by the Chinese Communist Party to pursue a campaign of “economic espionage” which relied on “businessmen, high level scientists, high-level academics” to try to steal confidential information and American innovation to take back to China.

“It’s everything from Fortune 100 companies to startups. It’s agriculture, it’s high tech, it’s aviation, it’s healthcare,” he said.

The intelligence chief also said the CCP were involved in trying to influence US politics to “try to shift them in a more friendly pro-China, pro-Chinese Communist Party direction.”

President Trump’s administration has been actively trying to root-out Chinese covert interference in the US, with Congress also raising concerns about the Communist country’s influence in American universities.

In January, the chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry department was charged with lying about his dealings with Chinese agencies who paid him $1.5 million for research.