A report from the U.S. intelligence community shows that some intelligence officials have assessed that the Chinese Communist Party did try to obstruct former President Donald Trump‘s (Trump) victory in the 2020 election. But the report also said the Chinese Communist Party did not “deploy specific intervention measures.
A report released March 10 by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) said Russia tried to discredit President Joe Biden and support Trump during the 2020 election; the Chinese Communist Party “did not deploy intervention measures, and although considered, did not deploy intervention measures to over but did not deploy intervention measures to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.” The report added, “We have a high degree of confidence in this judgment.”
The report further asserted that the CCP “seeks a stable relationship with the United States and does not believe that the potential benefits to the CCP from either outcome of the election would be sufficient to offset the risk of backlash if it were caught.” And U.S. intelligence officials suspect that “Beijing may believe that its traditional tools for exerting influence, primarily measures targeting the economy and lobbying key individuals and interest groups, will be sufficient to achieve its goal of trying to steer U.S. policy toward China, regardless of who wins the election. We found no attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to interfere with the election infrastructure or to provide funds to any candidate or party.”
But the report also notes that some U.S. intelligence officials believe the CCP did try to undercut Trump’s chances in the election.
The report’s minority view found that “national cyber intelligence officials assessed and concluded that the CCP took at least some steps, primarily through social media, official public statements, and the media, to undermine former President Trump’s re-election chances.” “The National Intelligence Council agrees with the submitting officials that Beijing’s primary focus has been on countering anti-China policies. The assessment is that some of Beijing’s efforts have been, at least indirectly, attempts to influence U.S. candidates, the political process, and voter preferences. This is consistent with the definition of ‘attempting to influence elections’ in this report. The National Intelligence Council agrees that we have no information to suggest that the CCP attempted to interfere with the election process itself. The National Intelligence Council has some confidence in these determinations.”
The few intelligence officials mentioned in the report refer to the National Intelligence Officer (NIO), who is responsible for cyber issues at the National Intelligence Council. The council leads the U.S. intelligence community in conducting cyber analysis and analyzing challenges to elections.
As the Washington Examiner notes, the assessment defines “influencing an election” as activities “designed to directly or indirectly affect an election,” and “election interference” as as an “attempt to target technical aspects of an election.
According to the majority view, “Our assessment is that the CCP’s preference for stability in bilateral relations and its assessment of the risks make Beijing reluctant to influence the election directly. Their judgment may be that attempting to influence the election itself could cause lasting damage to the U.S.-China relationship. And they believe that whichever candidate is elected will present opportunities and challenges for the CCP.”
Last year, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that the CCP interfered in the 2020 federal election and further claimed that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) management suppressed intelligence that the CCP interfered in the election, forcing analysts to withdraw support for that view.
Also this week, the Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and their cybersecurity agencies, said in a joint report that they have “no evidence that Russia, the Chinese Communist Party or any government-linked foreign polity, such as Iran, prevented voting, altered ballots, or disrupted the ability to count votes or deliver election results in a timely manner, or altered any technical aspect of the voting process, or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information for all votes cast in the 2020 federal election.”
At the same Time, Ratcliffe said at the time that he supported “the minority view, based on all available intelligence sources, that the People’s Republic of China (CCP) is attempting to influence the 2020 U.S. federal election. This view is consistent by definition and is not influenced by political considerations or undue pressure.”
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