During an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe discussed the Biden administration’s decision to buy Chinese drones for federal law enforcement, saying it “makes very little sense” and that China can “not be trusted.”
“Is the U.S. buying drones from China?” Bartiromo asked.
“Yeah, those reports are accurate as reflected, the Biden administration, through the FBI and Secret Service purchased from DJI, which is a company that the Trump administration actually flagged in 2017, Department of Homeland Security said that that specific company was using its drones for the purpose of providing information on U.S. critical infrastructure to the Chinese Communist Party,” Ratcliffe replied. “And that was moderate confidence that that was taking place, which is why our administration took all of those out and basically advanced a policy where we wouldn’t use that Chinese technology, you outline the kind of concerns that Huawei and companies that are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party pose to our national security.”
“So, like so much that Biden administration has done on national security lately, this makes very little sense,” he continued. “It’s harmful to our national security. And also, Chinese drone technology is not as good as U.S. drone technology. So it’s hard to make sense out of what’s doing this, other than it is consistent with the Biden administration taking a softer approach, trying to promote a false narrative that somehow China is a competitor and not an adversary. And you would think that the lessons learned from COVID would teach everyone that, you know, China’s not to be trusted, and that moves like this are harmful to our national security posture.”
The news comes just a week after China sent 56 military planes from its air force into Taiwanese air space as Taiwan prepares for a potential invasion by the Communist country.
Last month, Elbridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, warned that China was preparing to invade Taiwan, and explained the significance Taiwan has to the United States.
“I mean, our interest in in Taiwan are very significant, but partial,” Colby said. “The fundamental reason is that Taiwan is connected to the fate of what I think of as our coalition in Asia. Look, our lives would fundamentally change if China dominated the world. And the way for it to dominate the world is for it to dominate its region, which is going to be over 50% of global GDP, the way to get there is to break apart any group of states that tries to block it from doing so.”
“That group is going to be led by us, there’s nobody else who can do it,” Colby continued. “But it’s gonna include countries like Japan, Taiwan, India, maybe Vietnam, Australia, etc. If China wants to do that, it’s got to put a sort of a knife at the heart of our coalition. And to do that, Taiwan makes a lot of sense for two reasons. One is Taiwan, MacArthur called it the unsinkable aircraft carrier. If China gets Taiwan that its operating in the Central Pacific. Think, in a way, almost World War II in the Pacific.”
“The second reason is whatever people say, our credibility is tied to it,” he added. “And credibility isn’t something that matters all the time. But it sure matters if you’re in Japan, or the Philippines, or an archipelago in the western Pacific, and you say, well, the Americans have backed down from defending another archipelago in the western Pacific, namely Taiwan.”
