China poses the single biggest geopolitical test for the US in the 21st century, CIA Director William Burns has said, stressing that this threat is more serious than those from Russia during the Cold War.
Burns made the remarks to members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence during a Congressional hearing on worldwide threats on Thursday.
“I think China poses the single biggest geopolitical test for the United States as far out into the 21st century as I can see,” Burns said.
“What distinguishes that challenge from an increasingly adversarial Chinese Communist Party from, for example, the challenge we faced with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is that this challenge unfolds across a whole range of areas from military to ideological in terms of our values, economic and especially at its core competition and technology as well,” Burns said.
The US and China are at odds over a range of issues from trade to human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong and China’s western Xinjiang region, as well as over Taiwan, Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic.