General at the office of the Deputy Attorney general where he oversaw investigations conducted by the dojs Law Enforcement agencies. In 2003, president george w. As theminated mr. Wray assistant attorney general for dojs criminal division, where he oversaw major investigations in the domestic and International Criminal activities. The dojsersaw counterterrorism Counter Intelligence and export control sections. In they was instrumental dojs efforts to combat terrorism, cyber crime, and espionage. Today, he joins us to discuss chinas ongoing efforts to interfere in the United StatesDomestic Affairs through espionage, disinformation campaigns, intellectual property theft, and monetary theft. It is my pleasure to welcome director wray to the Hudson Institute. [applause] mr. Wray thank you. Good morning, everybody. I realize it is challenging under the current circumstances to put on an event like this. I am grateful to the Hudson Institute for hosting us today. The greatest longterm threat to our nations information and intellectual property and to our Economic Vitality is a counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from china. It is a threat to our Economic Security and, by extension, to our National Security. As National Security advisor obrien said in his recent remarks, we cannot close our eyes and ears to what china is doing. Today, in light of the importance of this threat, i will provide more detail on the chinese threat than the fbi has ever presented in an open forum. Significantis so that the attorney general and secretary of state will also be addressing a lot of these issues in the next few weeks. But if you think these issues are just an intelligence issue, or a government problem, or a nuisance largely for big corporations who can largely take care of themselves, you could not be more wrong. It is the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history. Are an american adult, it is more likely than not that china has stolen your personal data. 2017, the Chinese Military conspired to hack equifax and made off with sensitive personal information of 150 million americans, we are talking nearly half of the american population, and most american adults. As i will discuss in a few moments, this was hardly a standalone incident. Our data is not the only thing at stake here. So is our health, our livelihoods, and our security. We have now reached the point where the fbi is opening a new chinarelated counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5000 active fbi counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are all related to china. At this very moment, china is working to compromise American Health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions, conducting a central covid19 research. Me be clear. N, let this is not about the Chinese People and certainly a not certainly not about chinese americans. Every year, the United States welcomes more than 100,000 Chinese Students and teachers into this country. People who have journey to china from the United States secured blessings of liberty for themselves and their families and our society is better for their contributions. When i speak of a threat from china, i mean the government of china and the Chinese Communist party. Threat andnd this how we must act to respond to it, the American People should remember three things. First, we need to be clear eyed about the scope of the Chinese Governments ambition. China, the Chinese Communist party, leaves it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership. That is sobering enough, but it is waging that fight not through legitimate innovation, not through fair and lawful competition, and not by giving their citizens the freedom of thought and speech and creativity that we treasure here in the United States. Instead, china is engaged in an effort to become the worldss only superpower by any means necessary. The americaning people need to understand is diverse ranges a of sophisticated techniques. Everything from cyber intrusions to corrupting trusted insiders. They even engage in outright physical threats, and they pioneered an expansive approach to stealing information through a wide range of actors. Including not just chinese intelligence services, state owned enterprises, private companies, certain kinds of graduate students and researchers, and a whole variety of other actors working on their behalf. And surpassts goals america, china recognizes it needs to make leaps in cutting edge technologies. But the sad fact is instead of og ofing in the hard sl innovation, china often steals and uses it to compete with the American Companies it has victimized. They are targeting research on everything from military equipment, wind turbines, rice and corn seeds, through its talent recruitment programs like the socalled thousand Talents Program, the chinese try to entice scientists to bring our knowledge and innovation back to china, even if that means stealing proprietary information or violating our export controls and conflict of interest rules. Scientist, a of a , anese national and american lawful permanent resident. He applied to the China Thousand Talents Program and stole more than 1 billion worth of trade secrets from his former employer. In oklahoma based company. He got caught. A few months ago, he was convicted and sent to prison. There is the case of a texasbased scientist, also sent to prison earlier this year. Told secrets regarding a phone, an important piece of knowledge in submarines. To the thousand Talents Program, to absorb the Relevant Technology in the United States. Chinesehis on behalf of state owned enterprises, which ultimately planned to put the American Company out of business and take over the market. In one of the more galling and egregious aspects of the scheme, conspirators actually patented in china the very manufacturing process they had stolen and then offered their victim American Company a joint venture using its own stolen technology. We are talking about an American Company that spent years and developing dollars that technology, and china could not replicate it, so instead, it paid to have it stolen. Was two weeks ago, another convicted of espionage, trade secrets, in conspiracy for Trading Proprietary information about devices two u. S. Companies. Spent those companies has over 20 years developing the technology he stole. These cases were among more than 1000 investigations the fbi has into chinas actual and attempted theft of american technology, and that is not even talking about the more than 1000 other ongoing counterintelligence investigations of other kinds related to china. We are conducting these kinds of investigations in all 56 of our field offices. Over the past decade, we have seen economic espionage cases with a link to china increased by approximately 1300 . ,he stakes could not be higher and the potential economic harm to american businesses and the economy as a whole almost defies calculation. Advisornal security obrien discussed in his remarks, the Chinese Government is also making liberal use of hacking to steal our corporate and personal data, and they are using both military and nonstate hackers to do it. Intrusion i mentioned just a few moments ago, which led to the indictment of Chinese Military personnel, was hardly the only time china stole the sensitive personal information for future numbers of the american public. For example, did any of you have Health Insurance through anthem or one of its associated insurers . In 2015, chinas hackers stole the personal data of 80 million of that companys current and former customers. Or maybe you are a federal employee or used to be one, or you applied for a government job once, or a Family Member or roommate did. 2014, chinas hackers stole more than 21 million records from the federal Government Office of personnel management. Why . First, china has made becoming an Artificial Intelligence world leader a priority, and these kinds of thefts feed right into chinas development of Artificial Intelligence tools. But compounding the threat, the data china stole is of obvious value as they attempt to identify people for secret intelligence gathering. On that front, china is using social media platforms, the same ones americans use every day to , to connected or find jobs identify people with access to Sensitive Information and then target those people. Those people to try to steal it. One example. A chinese Intelligence Officer posing as a headhunter on a popular social media platform recently offered an american citizen a sizable sum of money socallede for Consulting Services. Sounds benign enough until you realize those Consulting Services were related to Sensitive Information the American Target had access to as a u. S. Military intelligence specialist. That particular tale has a happy ending. The american citizen to the right thing, reported the suspicious contact, and the fbi, working together with our armed forces, took it from there. I wish i could say all such incidents and that way end that way. Through talent recruitment programs like the 1000 Talents Program i mentioned moments ago, china pays scientists at american universities to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to china, including valuable federally funded research. To put it bluntly, this means american taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for chinas technological development. China than leverages its illgotten gains to undercut u. S. Research institutions and companies wanting our nations advancement and costing american jobs. We are seeing more and more of these cases. Arrested ae, we former researcher with the Cleveland Clinic who worked on malec will or medicine, and the genetics of cardiovascular disease, and a university of arkansas scientist doing research for nasa. Both of these guys were while accepting millions of dollars in american federal grant funding. Month, a former emery pled guiltyrofessor to filing a false tax return for failing to report the income he received through chinas thousand talents plan. While the was while he was researching, he was pocketing a half a million dollars. Department ofrds biology, was indicted last month for making false statements to federal authorities about his thousand talents participate in. United states alleged he stole nih, vard and and the fact through the Wuhan Institute of technology, a 50,000 monthly stipend, more than 150,000 in living expenses, and more than 1. 5 million to establish a laboratory back in china. There is more. Another tool china and the Chinese Communist party used to manipulate americans is what we call malign foreign influence. The traditional foreign influence is a normal, legal, diplomatic activity, typically conducted through diplomatic channels. Influence foreign efforts are subversive, under declared, criminal or coercive attempts to sway our governments policies, distort our public discourse, and undermine confidence in our demo democratic processes and values. In a highlyaged sophisticated, Malign Foreign Influence Campaign, including bribery, blackmail, and covert deals. Bothse diplomats also use open, naked economic pressure, and seemingly independent chinasn, to push preferences on american officials. Just take one all too common illustration. Lets say china gets wind that some american official is planning to travel to taiwan. Think, a governor, state senator, or member of congress. China does not want that to happen because that travel might appear to legitimize taiwanese independence from china and legitimizing taiwan would of course be contrary to chinas one china policy. So what does china do . Thea has leverage over american officials constituents. American companies, academics, and members of the media have a legitimate and understandable reason to want access to chinese partners and markets. Because of the authoritarian nature of chinese commonest party, china has immense power over those same partners and markets. So china will sometimes start by attempted to influence the american official overtly indirectly. China might old openly warned that if an american official goes in and take the trip to taiwan, china will take it out on a company from that officials home state by withholding the license to manufacture in china. That could be economically ruinous for the country and would directly pressure the american official to alter his travel plans and the official would know that china was trying to influence him. Bad enough, but the Chinese Communist party does not stop there. It cannot stop there if it wants to stay in power so it uses its leverage even more prodigiously. If china is more direct, if chinas more direct influence does not do the trick, it sometimes goes to indirect and deceptive efforts. To continue with the lustration of the american official with travel plans that the Chinese Communist party does not like, china will work relentlessly to identify the people closest to that official, the people that official trusts the most. China will work to influence those people to act on chinas behalf as middlemen to influence the official. The coopted middlemen may then whisper in the officials ear and try to sway the travel plan or public position on chinese policy. These intermediaries of course are not telling the american , and some of these intermediaries may not realize they are being used as pawns, because they, too, have been deceived. Ultimately, china does not hesitate to use smoke, mirrors, and misdirection to influence americans. Similarly, china often pushes academics and journalists to self center self sensor if theywant censor to travel. Chinas ambitions regarding hong kong or taiwan. This kind of thing is happening over and over across the United States. I will note that the pandemic has not stopped any of this. We have heard from federal, state, and local officials, that chinese diplomats are aggressively urging support for chinas handling of the covid19 crisis. Yes, this is happening at both the federal and state levels. Not that long ago, we had a state center who was recently even asked to redo introduce a resolution supporting chinas response to the pandemic. The punchline is, all of these seemingly inconsequential measures at up to a policymaking environment in which americans find themselves held over a barrel by the Chinese Communist party. While, chinas government and communist party has brazenly violated norms of the rule of law. 2014, xi jinping has spearheaded a program known as fox hunt. As andescribes fox Hunt International anticorruption campaign. It is not. Instead, it is a sweeping bid by toi he seesetary x as threats. We are talking about political rivals and critics seeking to expose chinas expensive human rights violations. Hunteds of these fox victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are united american citizens and green card holder. The Chinese Government wants to force them to return to china, and chinas tactics to accomplish that are shocking. For example, when it could not locate one fox hunt target, the Chinese Government sent an emissary to visit the targets family here in the United States. On message they said to pass the target had two options. Return promptly or commit suicide. Happens when foxhound targets refused to return to china . In the past, Family Members here in the United States and in china have been threatened and coerced, and those back in china are even arrested for leverage. I will take this opportunity to note that if you believe the Chinese Government is targeting you, that you are a potential foxhound victim, please reach out to your local Fbi Field Office. Understanding how a nation could engage in these kinds of tactics brings me to the third thing the American People need to remember. China has a fun