U.S. officials: The Chinese Communist Party and others are carrying out transnational repressive activities in the United States | Secretary of Homeland Security | Homeland Security Council | Iran

[The Epoch Times, November 17, 2023](Reported by English Epoch Times reporter Andrew Thornebrooke/Compiled by Qiusheng) Biden administration officials said that China and Iran are plotting on U.S. soil to harm those they believe pose a threat to their power.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the two authoritarian regimes are likely to continue to become more aggressive and take hostile actions against Americans and foreigners in the United States.

Mayorkas said in prepared testimony for a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on November 15 that “China (the Chinese Communist Party) and Iran will likely remain the most aggressive actors in the United States.”

“(These) adversaries have targeted individuals in the United States who they believe pose a threat to their regimes, including ethnic and religious minorities, political dissidents and journalists,” he said.

Mayorkas added that “agents of these regimes” have engaged in physical attacks, threats, harassment, defamation, enforced disappearances and even assassination attempts against individuals living in the United States.

FBI Director Christopher Wray also testified at the hearing that Iran hired potential hit men to murder senior government officials.

Wray also said in prepared testimony that “Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, has, directly or through hired criminals, carried out assassination attempts against political dissidents and current and former senior U.S. officials, including on U.S. soil. Assassination.”

“Countries like China, Russia and Iran are becoming more aggressive and more capable than ever before,” he said.

Wray had previously said similar things when describing an effort to uncover a plot by an Iranian to hire hitmen in the United States to kill senior Trump administration officials.

In August 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice accused an Iranian of hiring a murderer to kill John Bolton. Bolton served as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. The Justice Department said the Iranian was paid $300,000 to carry out Bolton’s assassination and was paid $1 million to kill an undisclosed target.

Likewise, Mayorkas noted that there are U.S. residents acting as illegal agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in an attempt to forcibly return opponents of the regime to China.

He said intelligence and national security services expect such activity to continue to increase in the coming years.

Mayorkas said, “In order to strengthen their many efforts in the public sphere, (China,) Iran and Russia will likely continue to conduct transnational repression in the United States and undermine American laws, norms and individual rights.”

Investigation of crimes related to the CCP2000rise

Wray said that the authoritarian governments of China, Iran and Russia pose “persistent and widespread national security threats,” especially China’s communist regime, which is constantly undermining U.S. national security and exploiting U.S. weaknesses.

“These criminals and nation-states believe they can disrupt our networks, steal our property, extort us, and put our critical infrastructure at risk without any risk to themselves,” Wray said. “

He added, “They continue to threaten U.S. national security and the economy by targeting strategic technologies, industries, sectors and critical infrastructure.”

To this end, Ray said that the FBI is currently investigating criminal activities related to the CCP in the United States in every field office, with as many as 2,000 cases.

These cases investigate how the Chinese regime uses or attempts to use coercion, subversion, malign influence, cyber and economic espionage, traditional espionage, and non-traditional intelligence collection methods to conduct or hire others to conduct complex intelligence activities.

Mayorkas added that the rise of new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence is likely to intensify the regime’s efforts to interfere in U.S. domestic affairs.

“The proliferation and popularity of emerging cyber and artificial intelligence tools will likely help these actors enhance their malicious messaging activities by creating higher quality, lower cost synthetic text, image and audio content,” he said.

He emphasized, “These countries are using an increasing number of tactics to try to undermine our core democratic, economic and scientific institutions.”

original:China and Iran Targeting Individuals on US Soil: Biden Admin OfficialsPublished in the English Epoch Times.

Editor in charge: Li Lin#