Beijing’s espionage campaign against the West

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. 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