The head of the FBI and the leader of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency (MI5) raised fresh alarms about the security threats posed by the Chinese government. In a joint address on Wednesday, they warned business leaders that China is looking to steal technologies for competitive gain and that can lead to major security breaches. FBI Director Christopher Wray and his MI5 counterpart Ken McCallum said that the concerns of economic espionage commissioned by China continues to be a major problem and hacking operations by the country can be used to “stifle dissent abroad”.
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“We consistently see that it’s the Chinese government that poses the biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security, and by ‘our’, I mean both of our nations, along with our allies in Europe and elsewhere,” Wray said in his address according to Associated Press.
Wray added that China is “set on stealing your technology, whatever it is that makes your industry tick, and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market”.
Ken McCallum said that China has been on their radar for quite some time when it comes to the “widespread attempts at inference” which applies to “so many aspects of our national life”.
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“Today is the first time the heads of the FBI and MI5 have shared a public platform,” McCallum said.
“We’re doing so to send the clearest signal we can on a massive, shared challenge: China.”
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, denied all allegations and told Associated Press that they “firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber-attacks”.
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