ODNI to Increase China Intell Spending by Nearly 20%; John Ratcliffe Quoted

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement Thursday it has shifted resources in its fiscal year 2021 budget to increase intelligence spending on China by nearly 20 percent to help address concerns over economic, counterintelligence and national security threat posed by the East Asian country, The Wall Street Journal reported.

National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said the shift in resources involves “money and manpower” and hinted that some counterterrorism-focused analysts would be realigned to focus more on China.

“When the evidence is so clear, and increasingly clear, that China and China alone can compete with us in all spaces, when we’ve looked at all of the different threat streams… the resources needed to be shifted,” Ratcliffe said.

Ratcliffe said during media interviews and wrote in a WSJ commentary published Thursday that China "poses the greatest threat to America today and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II."

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