China most capable of threatening US interests: Intelligence report

The '2025 Annual Threat Assessment is the Intelligence Community’s official, coordinated evaluation of an array of threats to US citizens, the homeland, and US interests in the world.

New York/Washington: China presents the “most comprehensive and robust military threat” to US national security and remains the most active and persistent “cyber threat” to US government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks, a report by US intelligence agencies has said.

The '2025 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA)', released on Tuesday, is the Intelligence Community’s (IC) official, coordinated evaluation of an array of threats to US citizens, the homeland, and US interests in the world.

Apart from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea were listed as the major state actors that pose a threat to the US and US interests across the globe while India was listed along with China as the primary source of illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and pill pressing equipment.

The report said that Russia views the ongoing war in Ukraine as “a proxy conflict with the West,” and pointed at “both urgency and complications for US efforts to bring the war to an acceptable close”.

“China stands out as the actor most capable of threatening US interests globally, though it is also more cautious than Russia, Iran, and North Korea about risking its economic and diplomatic image in the world by being too aggressive and disruptive,” the report pointed out.

Growing cooperation among these actors expands the threat, increasing the risk that should hostilities with one occur, it may draw in others, it added.

“China has demonstrated the ability to compromise US infrastructure through formidable cyber capabilities that it could employ during a conflict with the United States,” it said.

“Beijing will continue to strengthen its conventional military capabilities and strategic forces, intensify competition in space, and sustain its industrial- and technology-intensive economic strategy to compete with US economic power and global leadership”, the report added.

“China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat to US national security,” the report said.

“The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is fielding a joint force that is capable of full-spectrum warfare to challenge intervention by the United States in a regional contingency, projecting power globally, and securing what Beijing claims is its sovereign territory.”

The report also said a major portion of China’s military modernisation efforts is focused on “developing counter-intervention capabilities tailored against all aspects of US and allied military operations in the Pacific.” The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has the capability to conduct long-range precision-strikes with conventional weapons against the US' periphery in the western Pacific, including Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska, it added.

On the cyber front, the US report said that China remains “the most active and persistent cyber threat to US government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks”.

Listing examples of its campaign to preposition access on critical infrastructure for attacks during crisis or conflict, the report said it demonstrates the growing breadth and depth of China's capabilities to compromise US infrastructure.

“China’s dominance in the mining and processing of several critical materials is a particular threat, providing it with the ability to restrict quantities and affect global prices,” it said.

The report said China remains intent on modernising, diversifying, and expanding its nuclear posture, and has eclipsed Russia as a space leader and is poised to compete with the United States as the world’s leader in space.

The report also said that Russia views the ongoing war in Ukraine as a proxy conflict with the West.

The resulting heightened and prolonged political-military tensions between Moscow and Washington, coupled with Russia’s growing confidence in its battlefield superiority and defence industrial base and increased risk of nuclear war, create both urgency and complications for US efforts to bring the war to an acceptable close.

It also added that Moscow is increasingly willing to play spoiler in Western-centric forums such as the UN as well as use non-Western organisations like the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) group to press policies such as de-dollarisation.