The Western Journal Attorney General William Barr described the communist Chinese government as engaged in a “full-court blitzkrieg” against the United States, but said the Department of Justice is actively working to counter the threat with its “China Initiative.”
In an interview that aired Wednesday night, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Barr if the DOJ planned to take any action against China given the country’s record of nefarious conduct, including, most recently, failing to release essential data to the United States regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.
“What about the Justice Department getting involved more, I guess, obviously to the American people in this battle against the ongoing propaganda machine of China in the United States at our universities, in businesses — hey, in the White House Press Room the other day?” Ingraham asked.
“Yes,” Barr answered. “The department is heavily engaged in that. In fact, that’s one of our highest priorities in the counterintelligence realm, counterespionage realm and protection of trade secrets as our activity’s directed to defend against the Chinese.
“The Chinese are engaged in a full-court blitzkrieg of stealing American technology, trying to influence our political system, trying to steal secrets at our research universities and so forth. And we are focused on it. We have something we call the China Initiative.”
In November 2018, the DOJ announced the initiative, which is designed to counter Beijing’s espionage activities, trade law violations and misinformation campaigns directed against the American people.
Barr said the DOJ had already brought several indictments against Chinese perpetrators.
Ingraham then asked the AG whether he sees China or Russia as a graver threat to the United States’ election security.
“In my opinion, it’s China,” Barr responded. “And not just to the election process, but I think across the board, there’s simply no comparison. China is a very serious threat to the United States geopolitically, economically, militarily, and a threat to the integrity of our institutions given their ability to influence things.”
The nation’s top law enforcement official argued that one positive consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak has been to highlight “the importance of borders and controlling who is coming into the country.”
“I felt for a long time, as much as people talk about global warming, that the real threat to human beings are microbes and being able to control disease,” Barr said. “And that starts with controlling your border.”
“So I think people will be more attuned to more protective measures, but also the supply chain issue,” he said.
Barr pointed out the COVID-19 outbreak also spotlighted the U.S. vulnerability in having much of its needed medical supplies imported from China and other nations overseas.
“When everyone else in the world wants it during a pandemic, it was a crazy situation to get into,” he said.
Helen Raleigh — an immigration policy fellow with the Centennial Institute in Colorado who was born and raised in China — told The Western Journal the nation’s communist system greatly contributed to its poor response to the coronavirus outbreak and its ultimate deadly impact on the world.
“The bureaucracy caused the delay, and also this overwhelming desire from the centralized government, the communist party, to present the most positive image of the country that in the early weeks they covered up the spring of the coronavirus,” she said.
A study by the University of Southhampton in the United Kingdom found that if what it described as nonpharmaceutical interventions — early detection, isolation of cases, travel restrictions and cordon sanitaire — had been implemented even weeks earlier, the story of coronavirus could have played out far differently.
“If interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively — significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease,” the researchers said.