During a recent meeting of current and former members of the nation's intelligence community, China was fingered as the top major threat of the United States.
According to Yahoo News, the gathering was hosted by national security website Cipher Brief and took place on Sea Island, Georgia. Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who served as CIA director from 2011-2012, was there and told the website China was the hot topic.
"I think it's all China, all the time," Petraeus said.
Added Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, "I believe economic security is national security. "If we don't fix this, the existential threat is only from China."
The meeting took place over the weekend as the Department of Justice was releasing the key findings of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians to win the 2016 election. But the attendees, according to Yahoo, had no interest in talking about Mueller or his two-year investigation.
"Most people here are career officials," one unnamed national security official told Yahoo. "They're not going to talk about that."
Several officials and analysts are worried about China's potential to become a major threat to the U.S. The communist nation has flexed its military muscles by building artificial islands — and arming them — in the South China Sea and is thought to be behind laser attacks on U.S. military aircraft.
The Trump administration is negotiating with China on a trade deal that would be beneficial to both countries.
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