Remarks as prepared for delivery by The Honorable Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence
Annual Threat Assessment Opening Statement
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
March 08, 2023
Source: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/congressional-testimonies/congressional-testimonies-2023/3685-dni-haines-opening-statement-on-the-2023-annual-threat-assessment-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community
GLOSSARY
1 | the Intelligence Community | 미국 정보당국 |
2 | Chinese Communist Party (CCP) | 중국공산당 or CCP |
3 | 20th Party Congress | 제20차 전국대표회 |
4 | PRC’s State Council | 중국 국무원 |
5 | Party’s Standing Committee | 상임 위원회 |
SCRIPT (553 words)
Before I start, I just want to publicly thank the men and women of the Intelligence Community, whose work we are presenting today. From the collector to the analyst and everybody in between who made it possible for us to bring you the annual threat assessment in hopes that this work will help keep our country safe and prosperous, thank you.
This year’s assessment notes that during the coming year, the United States and its allies will face an international security environment dominated by two sets of strategic challenges that intersect with each other and existing trends to intensify their national security implications.
First, great powers, rising regional powers, and an evolving array of non-state actors are vying for influence and impact in the international system, including over the standards and rules that will shape the global order for decades to come. The next few years are critical as strategic competition with China and Russia intensifies, in particular, over how the world will evolve and whether the rise of authoritarianism can be checked and reversed. Other threats are, of course, also individually significant, but how well we stay ahead of — and manage — this competition will be fundamental to our success at navigating everything else.
Second, challenges that transcend borders — including climate change, human and health security, and economic needs made worse by energy and food insecurity, as well as Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine — are converging as the planet emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and all at the same time as great powers are challenging longstanding norms for transnational cooperation. Further compounding this dynamic is the impact that rapidly emerging technologies are having on governance, business, society, and intelligence around the world.
Given that background, perhaps needless to say, the People’s Republic of China — which is increasingly challenging the United States economically, technologically, politically, and militarily around the world — remains our unparalleled priority. The Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, under President Xi Jinping will continue efforts to achieve Xi’s vision of making China the preeminent power in East Asia and a major power on the world stage.
To fulfill Xi’s vision, however, the CCP is increasingly convinced that it can only do so at the expense of U.S. power and influence, and by using coordinated, whole-of-government tools to demonstrate strength and compel neighbors to acquiesce to its preferences, including its land, sea, and air claims in the region and its assertions of sovereignty over Taiwan.
Last October, President Xi secured his third five-year term as China’s leader at the 20th Party Congress, and, as we meet today, China’s national legislature is in session, formally appointing Xi and confirming his choice to lead the PRC’s State Council, as well as its ministries and the leaders of the military, legislative, and judicial branches. After more than a decade serving as China’s top leader, Xi’s control over key levers of power gives him significant power and influence over most issues.
Xi has surrounded himself with like-minded loyalists at the apex of the Party’s Standing Committee, China’s highest decision-making body, and we assess that during the course of Xi’s third term they will together attempt to press Taiwan on unification; undercut U.S. influence, which they perceive as a threat; drive wedges between Washington and its allies and partners; and promote certain norms that favor China’s authoritarian system.