US intelligence agencies step up warnings on Beijing influence

US intelligence has warned that China’s political coercion in Southeast Asia directly threatens our regional neighbours.

US National Security Agency boss Mike Rogers.

US intelligence has warned that China’s political coercion and interference in Southeast Asia has become so pervasive that it ­directly threatens the sovereignty of Australia’s regional neighbours.

The new, much darker US assessment of China is expected to be raised with Malcolm Turnbull during a private lunch with the US Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, in Washington this week.

The warning comes amid growing awareness in Washington of China’s global efforts to exert political and economic coercion, not only in Asia but also in the US, which has largely been focused on Russian interference since the election of Donald Trump as President.

A newly released US intelligence assessment of regional threats facing the US this year, written by Mr Coats, states openly for the first time that Chinese political and economic coercion is directly undermining sovereignty of nations in Southeast Asia. It says this comes at a time when the US also warns that democracy in Australia’s region is under growing threat.

“Democracy and human rights in many Southeast Asian countries will remain fragile in 2018 as autocratic tendencies deepen in some regimes and rampant corruption and cronyism undermine democratic values,” says the US intelligence community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment for 2018.

“Countries in the region will struggle to preserve foreign policy autonomy in the face of Chinese economic and diplomatic coercion.”

It warns that instability, authoritarianism and repression in Cambodia and Myanmar will “provide opinions for Beijing to ­expand its influence”.

The report, which was quietly released in Washington last week, follows the Turnbull government’s shake-up of intelligence and espionage laws to limit foreign interference in Australia — a move widely seen as aimed at China. It also comes amid growing concern about China’s attempts to use political and economic coercion to increase its influence over Pacific island nations.

The Coats report predicts China will “continue to pursue an active foreign policy — especially in the Asia-Pacific region — highlighted by a firm stance on its sovereignty claims in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, its relations with Taiwan and its pursuit of economic engagement across the region”.

It warns that Beijing will “continue to use cyber espionage and bolster cyber-attack capabilities to support national security priorities”. It says China is especially targeting cyber attacks against defence, IT and communications com­panies that support government systems.

Mr Turnbull will discuss China’s growing cyber-attack capabilities with the head of the US’s National Security Agency, Mike Rogers, and Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in a meeting in Washington tomorrow night (AEDT).

Mr Turnbull is also expected to discuss the US military posture in the Pacific when he meets at the Pentagon later in the day with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford.

Andrew Shearer, former national security adviser to prime minister Tony Abbott and now senior adviser of Asia Pacific Security at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the new US assessment on China’s interference on Southeast Asia made for “sobering reading”.

“Australia hasn’t had to worry much about the risk of being caught up in great power competition (much less conflict) or significant instability in its region since the end of the Cold War, but that is starting to change,” Mr Shearer told The Australian.

“The recent Director of National Intelligence threat assessment, along with the US administration’s National Security Strategy, National Defence Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review, make sobering reading. Each highlights the developing strategic competition between China and the United States and points to Beijing’s sustained efforts to build power and influence in Asia at America’s expense.”

The Turnbull government shares many of these concerns but it has been more muted in its language, for fear of angering Beijing.

Mr Shearer said the issue of China’s growing political and economic interference in the affairs of the US, Australia and other nations was certain to be discussed between Mr Turnbull and Mr Trump during their Oval Office meeting on Friday.

“Encouraging the US president of the day to engage in the affairs of Southeast Asia is always at the top of the talking points for just about every Australian prime minister to visit Washington, and there is little doubt that discussing how Australia and the United States can work more closely together to bolster the capacity and resilience of vulnerable Southeast Asian countries in the face of China’s growing influence will be a focus of Prime Minister Turnbull’s Oval Office meeting with President Trump,” Mr Shearer said.

Leading US congressmen have called on the Trump administration and Western allies to back Australia in its efforts to stand up to China over foreign interference.

During a congressional hearing in Washington in December, former US Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio raised the story of fallen Labor senator Sam Dastyari, warning that China’s attempts to buy political influence now “pose serious challenges in the United States and our like-minded allies”.

Senator Rubio said it was time for US policymakers to pay greater attention to the issue of Chinese foreign interference operations, which he said were “intended to censor critical discussion of China’s history and human rights record and to intimidate critics of its repressive polices”.

Mr Shearer said China was stepping up its activities across the region in different ways. “Much of this competition is playing itself out in Australia’s strategic backyard, Southeast Asia,” he said.

Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia.