Army of the biologically enhanced 'super soldiers': China is using 'gene editing' to make the military 'stronger and more powerful', Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has warned
National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe has said that China is creating a new generation of 'super soldiers' using 'gene editing' to make them 'stronger and more powerful'.
Speaking in an interview on Fox News today, he said that the Chinese Communist Party’s military expansion has been so aggressive that they are now engaging in human testing to create a biologically enhanced army.
Clarifying comments he made in an op-ed published on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal he said: 'Their aim is to dominate militarily, technologically and economically.
'On the military front they have already achieved having the largest navy in any country in the world. The People's Republic of China has a military of two million.
National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe has said that China is creating a new generation of 'super soldiers' using 'gene editing' to make them 'stronger and more powerful'
'They want them to be the largest and they also want them to be the strongest which is why they're engaged in gene editing - literally trying to alter the DNA to make soldiers, sailors and airmen stronger and more powerful.'
It comes after a critical article he wrote for the WSJ last week where he said that China poses the greatest threat to America and the rest of the free world since World War II.
In the piece Ratcliffe said that U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted tests on members of the People's Liberation Army.
Ratcliffe - a Republican former member of Congress from Texas - said: 'There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power.'
Speaking in an interview on Fox News today, he said that the Chinese Communist Party’s military expansion has been so aggressive that they are engaging in human testing to create a biologically enhanced army
His office and the CIA did not immediately respond to requests to elaborate on the claims that China is seeking to create 'super soldiers'.
U.S.-based think tanks have reported that China is giving increasing importance to biotechnology in its military strategy but they have not released detailed reports about the kind of testing alleged by Ratcliffe.
Last year, two American scholars wrote a paper examining China's ambitions to apply biotechnology to the battlefield.
Their studies found what they said were signs that China was interested in using gene-editing technology to enhance human performance.
On the campaign trail, President Trump warned that President-elect Biden (pictured with Chinese President Xi Jinping) would go easy on China, although Biden agrees that China is not abiding by international trade rules and is stealing American innovation
In the piece for the WSJ Ratcliffe wrote: 'The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.
'Many of China's major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.'
'I call its approach of economic espionage "rob, replicate and replace,"' Ratcliffe said. 'China robs US companies of their intellectual property, replicates the technology and then replaces the US firms in the global marketplace.'
Trump administration officials have been stepping up their anti-China rhetoric for months, especially during the presidential campaign as President Donald Trump sought to deflect blame for the spread of the coronavirus.
The Trump administration, which once boasted of warm relations with China's President Xi Jinping, also has been ramping up sanctions against China over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
It has moved against the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and sought restrictions on Chinese social media applications like TikTok and WeChat.
China's embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment on Ratcliffe's op-ed, although China has routinely denied many of these allegations in the past.
