Navy intel chief says average Americans are ‘naive,’ have ‘blindness’ on China threat

Navy intel chief says average Americans are ‘naive,’ have ‘blindness’ on China threat

Justin Cooper

The commander of Navy intelligence recently called the average American “naïve” to the threats posed by China, saying the nation suffers from “a China blindness problem” as competition between the countries reaches new heights.

Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, made the remark Feb. 15, Breaking Defense reported, at the height of the fallout over a Chinese spy balloon that flew over a large part of the U.S. before being shot down by fighter jets.

“I’ll be very honest with you. It’s very unsettling to see how much the U.S. is not connecting the dots on our No. 1 challenge,” Studeman said during the U.S. Naval Institute’s WEST 2023 conference in San Diego, California.

“It’s disturbing how ill-informed and naïve the average American is on China. I chalk this up, if I could summarize, into a China blindness. We face a knowledge crisis and a China blindness problem,” he added.

U.S. officials have increasingly sounded alarms about China in recent years, and relations between the two countries plunged to a new low amid the spy balloon incident. China claimed it was a wayward civilian weather balloon, but the U.S. has described it as part of a broader surveillance program run by China’s People’s Liberation Army that has targeted more than 40 countries.

Studeman reportedly suggested that the so-called “China blindness” may stem from the military’s tendency to classify more information than necessary.

“Frankly, I’ve been in a struggle for some time with the Intelligence Community to be able to actually downgrade some of the things that we see that are truly damning with regard to what the Chinese are doing and why they’re doing it, and get those out into the public domain,” he said.

Studeman reportedly ended his remarks by asking government officials to tamp down on debates that distract from external threats.

“Can we please lower the amount of internal bickering within the United States and focus on the international challenges that actually affect every American?” he said.

China’s Xi vows to build up military into a ‘great wall of steel’ against US

Justin Cooper

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged to build his military “into a great wall of steel” as rivalry with the U.S. heats up amid fears of a new cold war.

The remark came Monday in Xi’s first speech since being sworn in for an unprecedented third term in office during the annual Chinese Communist Party meeting, the Washington Post reported.

Xi said he would “build the military into a great wall of steel that effectively safeguards national sovereignty, security and our development interests,” and added that “safety is the foundation of development, and stability is the prerequisite for prosperity.”

He said that the “Chinese nation’s great revival is on an irreversible path.”

“With the founding of the Communist Party of China … and after a century of struggle, our national humiliation has been erased, and the Chinese people have become the masters of their own destiny,” he said.

Three days before these comments, the Chinese congress rubber-stamped Xi’s third term as president, the latest step that has made Xi China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

The statements also came on the heels of Xi making uncommonly pointed remarks directed at the U.S. that echoed the language of the Cold War.

“Western countries—led by the U.S.—have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development,” he reportedly said during a meeting at the annual CCP gathering.

U.S. relations with China have been souring for years, but have recently hit dramatic lows, particularly over Taiwan, a self-governing island China claims as its own, and the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. in February.