Beijing’s espionage campaign against the West

Summary
The recent Treasury Department breach is the latest example of China’s strategic plan to destabilize the free world.When a state-sponsored Chinese hacker breached the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, it allowed the Communist Party to access sensitive information with significant strategic implications. It’s the latest example of Beijing’s espionage campaign against the West, which runs deeper and is far more dangerous than the Soviet efforts of the 20th century.
While leading America’s clandestine operations and diplomacy during the first Trump term, I got a front-row seat to these undercover activities. Judging from publicly available information, these efforts have accelerated over the past four years. The Chinese Communist Party is already deep inside our critical networks and infrastructure—a consequence of a dangerous gap in our national security that imperils Americans and heightens the risk of war.
For too long, the U.S. has underestimated the scale of and risks associated with Beijing’s covert operations. Recent examples illuminate the seriousness of the threat: Chinese-sponsored hackers allegedly compromised American telecommunication networks during the 2024 presidential campaign, targeting the phones of Trump and Harris campaign affiliates. It also recently came to light that a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group dubbed Volt Typhoon embedded malware in critical infrastructure in Guam, which would enable China to disrupt communications between the U.S. and Asia in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. The same group also infiltrated sensitive U.S. military networks in Guam.
Today, Chinese state-sponsored hackers outnumber the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray. These groups regularly target vital American databases, government agencies and critical infrastructure. The Chinese Communist Party has built a vast influence network across the U.S. by bribing and threatening American citizens to advance its malign objectives.
These attacks are part of a strategic effort to destabilize the West and prepare Beijing for war. The Biden administration’s failure to acknowledge this risk and counter it effectively has given China more political power abroad and heightened the risk of a wider conflict. To protect America, the Trump administration must develop counterintelligence capacity and counterespionage efforts at a scale large enough to defend against the Chinese Communist Party’s threat.
U.S. federal and state officials should demand reciprocity in the relationship with China. If U.S. entities are barred from investing in areas China deems a national-security risk, we shouldn’t allow China to invest in areas that could pose a risk to us—such as Chinese entities buying land near our military bases. If U.S. firms must consent to technology transfers and party oversight to do business in China, Chinese firms shouldn’t be able to do business here without more oversight. If our diplomats can’t freely and privately communicate with Chinese citizens, we shouldn’t tolerate Chinese officials doing so with U.S. citizens. If fewer than 1,000 American students study at Chinese universities annually, we shouldn’t grant visas to nearly 300,000 students from China—especially when some of them engage in scientific espionage, intellectual-property theft and other hostile activities.
The Biden administration in 2022 foolishly shut down the China Initiative, an anti-espionage program started in the first Trump term to counter the malign Chinese activities within our borders. Mr. Trump should revive this program on day one of his second presidency.
His administration should also recognize that a fragile Chinese economy, coupled with Xi Jinping’s increasingly draconian policies, will expand the number of disaffected Chinese nationals willing to work with the U.S. to undermine the Communist Party. China is willing to commit massive resources to develop influence networks inside its adversary’s borders, and we must be prepared to do the same.
The idea that America’s relationship with China should be based on mutual understanding and fair competition is naive. It gives the Communist Party all the room it needs to infiltrate our government and society. The U.S. will be secure only if we acknowledge Beijing’s ideological hostility toward America and its desire to supplant us as the pre-eminent world power. We should take the Chinese threat at least as seriously as we took the Soviet threat in the Cold War. It’s time for Washington to engage seriously in a conflict Beijing knows has already begun.
Mr. Pompeo served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 2017-18, and secretary of state, 2018-21.