China: Still an Intelligence Priority
The Washington Times is reporting that the Obama administration has apparently moved forward with a decision to ratchet down intelligence collection against China, moving the PRC from a top-tier priority target for the intelligence community to a second-level collection concern. Top-tier collection targets include Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda, whereas second-tier targets typically reflect a host of matters, ranging from tensions between Pakistan and India, Russian pressures on its neighbors, drug cartels and climate change. The change in priority ultimately has an impact on how limited collection and analytic intelligence community resources are parceled out. Again, according to the Times, this change was pushed by the Obama NSC and over the objections of the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, and CIA Director, Leon E. Panetta.
This is not the first time such a move has been made. When I worked in the Reagan White House, a similar effort was made to change how we gauged China as an intelligence priority — probably for a similar reason. At the time, many in the administration believed that China would be a necessary asset for balancing against the Soviet Union. The thought was that by changing the priority given China for intelligence collection we would be signaling them that we no longer saw them as an adversary. Obviously, today we don’t need the PRC for countering the Soviet Union — if we ever did. However, the Obama team seems convinced it needs China’s assistance on a host of problems and is in the business of reassuring Beijing that we have no intention of preventing their rise and, again, wants to signal that change by altering how we see them vis-a-vis our intelligence effort.
Ironically, the effort made during the 1980s to make this change, made more sense then than today. China was not really an ally, like many thought; but, on the other hand, it was not a real competitor either. Today, that no longer can be said and, indeed, Chinese strategists are anything but shy in making that point themselves. Although there are certainly any number of pressing problems for the U.S. to face, like Iran’s nuclear program, over the medium- and long-term, there is little question that how China develops and what its leadership conceives to be its role on the world stage to be will be critical to our own position in Asia and, more generally, global peace and security. Pretending otherwise is short-sighted. It is all the more remarkable given the fact that the U.S. government is continually surprised by the military advances China is making, how little we really know about what the inner circle of the PRC is thinking and, according to the report after report by our own counterintelligence officials, the avalanche of Chinese spying we are attempting to deal with. Downgrading the priority given the PRC as a target will certainly not make those gaps any easier to fill.
The U.S. intelligence community ought to be able to chew gum and walk at the same time, which means keeping one eye on current threats while, at the same time, keeping an eye out for a rising and competitive China. And, in turn, the Obama NSC ought to get out of the business of using intelligence to engage in diplomatic signaling. There are plenty of other tools for it to use to push a wrong-headed policy. If nothing else, it should be hedging its bets on its new engagement efforts by trying to find out as much about China’s real intentions as it can.
Gary Schmitt is director of advanced strategic studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
