"5 countries" intelligence agencies announce 'China threat'

The mouse experiment is complete, now it's time for humans...

FBI Director Wray stated that the People's Republic of China represents the defining threat of this generation, this age, and said, "There is no other country that poses a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our innovations, our economic security and ultimately our national security."

2 thousand active investigations

"We're talking about everything from Fortune 100 companies to smaller startups, agriculture, biotechnology, healthcare, robotics, aerospace, academic research, everything from agriculture, biotechnology, biotechnology, healthcare, robotics, aerospace, academic research," Wray said, adding that they have witnessed efforts by the Chinese government to steal intellectual property, trade secrets and personal data directly or indirectly across the US. We have about 2,000 active investigations in the United States into the Chinese government's efforts to steal information."

Wray argued that China has a larger "hacking" program than all other major nations combined, saying, "This is in many ways a threat to our way of life. It means the same thing for American jobs, for American families, for American livelihoods, and for each of our 5 countries directly affected by the theft."

"We all came to this meeting to figure out how we can better protect our innovations and intellectual property," Wray said, noting that the heads of intelligence of the 5 countries came together and met with the leaders of giant technology companies in Silicon Valley to jointly combat China's technology espionage.

China's spying is "about promising start-ups"

"It's not just about critical infrastructure, it's about academic research in our universities, it's about promising start-ups," said Ken McCallum, head of MI5, the UK's domestic intelligence service, noting that Chinese espionage is not just about government or military secrets.

McCallum pointed out that technology theft takes many different forms, and said there are more than 20,000 examples of China using professional networking sites to secretly reach people in the UK who have security clearances or work in interesting areas of technology.

"Theft on this scale is unprecedented in human history"

David Vigneault, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, pointed out that the People's Republic of China also uses other means such as the acquisition of land and companies in other countries, and said that in Canada, they have thwarted attempts to take over locations close to China's sensitive, strategic assets in the country, which they believe were done for espionage purposes.

Mike Burgess, Head of Australia's Security Intelligence Agency, pointed out that all countries spy for "strategic advantage" and said, "But the behavior we are talking about here goes far beyond traditional espionage. Theft on this scale is unprecedented in human history."

Andrew Hampton, the head of New Zealand's National Security Agency, said that they need to fight together against China's technological espionage, noting that one of the strongest aspects of the "Five Eyes" partnership is sharing core values on this issue.