Any tendency to consider CIA Chief William Burns as a moderating force within the Biden Administration’s war party was dispelled by his speech at Georgia Tech on April 14. Besides his war-mongering against Russia, Burns declared China to be “our greatest challenge, in many ways the most profound test the CIA has ever faced.” He announced a major reorganization of the CIA to meet the “threat posed by the Communist Party of China,” which includes: the establishment in February of a new “mission center,” the first dedicated to a single country; a “rapidly increasing budget” for countering China; and “expanding operations overseas, not just in Asia, but worldwide.”
Burns declared that China “seeks to overtake us in literally every domain, from economic strength to military power and from space to cyberspace.” He gave some parameters of China’s rise, whining that it is now “a leader in AI, 5G, drones, hypersonics and web applications.”
