The Wall Street Journal’s Joel Schectman and Dustin Volz say yes, that if confirmed “Trump’s CIA Pick Expected to Push for Bare-Knuckle Spycraft Against China” (January 13, 2025).
Ratcliffe, a known quantity, having also served on the national security team during Trump’s first term, shares the view that China “is the greatest long-term threat facing the U.S.”
Trump and his advisers have said China is the top economic and national-security threat and have outlined a range of actions, including potentially steep tariffs, that they want to enact against Beijing.”
Clandestine intelligence operations are among the areas that could be subjected to some of the biggest changes under Trump. Ratcliffe would push for aggressive spy missions against high-level officials in China and for covert operations intended to counter Beijing’s growing influence around the world, a person close to him said. Ratcliffe would also likely pursue such activity to deter recent Chinese cyberattacks, including the compromise of telecommunications networks, the person said. (Beijing has denied involvement in the attacks.)
“John knows he’s got the ultimate top cover: that’s Trump,” the person said. “Trump is down for that kind of thing.”
Although many national-security officials say that many administrations have “been too naive” about the threat of China, some national-security officials and some Democratic lawmakers “have accused Ratcliffe of politicizing intelligence about China during Trump’s first term to obscure efforts by Russia, which spy agencies have said sought to boost Trump’s electoral prospects.” But if Russia has tried to influence U.S. elections—let’s just assume all the bad guys have tried—this doesn’t mean that China isn’t the threat that Ratcliffe and like-minded observers of the CCP-dominated country believe it to be.
Speaking of “politicization,” the authors also observe that according to a 2021 report to Congress by an “internal intelligence community watchdog…the U.S. intelligence community’s China analysts were hesitant to label Beijing’s actions as election interference, out of fear that their work would be used to support Trump’s agenda.”
Of course, different analysts can in good faith have differing interpretations of the same data. But if you don’t want to state your own actual conclusions though it’s your job to do so because you would rather sabotage the commander in chief, go home and let somebody else take over.
