US officials trained to consider China an enemy: Former American intelligence official

China is not an enemy of the United States but American universities and think tanks train individuals to consider the Asian power an adversary, a former US intelligence official says.

Scott Rickard, an international peace activist and ex-US intelligence linguist based in Florida, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Friday while commenting on NSA Director Michael Rogers’ assertion that Chinese officials have a hand in the theft of commercial data in the US.

Rogers told a Senate panel on Thursday that Chinese officials regularly access private digital communications and data that flow through China.

“We have been very up front,” Rogers told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “We cannot sustain a long term relationship” if China continues unrestrained cyber theft of US intellectual property.

“I think it’s very clear that the Americans do this not only to China but to fairly pretty much every country around the world,” Rickard said.

“The real difference here is that the activity of the American operations is little to no press in the Western world, but in fact when the Chinese do it becomes a very serious issue,” he added.

“Now the Chinese are obviously of course very good at it and are exposing the weaknesses of the United States’ computer system infrastructure,” he stated.

“So I think what the US needs to do is focus more on its weaknesses and not consider China as an enemy. China is still the largest trading partner with the United States,” the analyst advised.  

US officials believe Chinese authorities use government spying systems to collect purely economic intelligence that can help Chinese companies. The US government says it does not share foreign intelligence with American companies.

This is while leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have since 2013 revealed that the US spy agency itself has been involved in secret mass data collection from emails and phone calls both in America and around the world.

“It’s very clear that China is not the enemy,” Rickard reiterated. “I think what you have here is the perception that is made by the individuals who are put through the perceptive schools, like the University of Chicago, like the John Hopkins School of International Studies, other schools like Tufts University - Fletcher School of Law [and Diplomacy], and Harvard.”

“These are the individuals who get big time in the major infrastructure of the media across the United States.  So the perspective that is set in the media side, in the New York Times, in CBS and other major outlets -- these type of commentaries coming from organizations like CSI and other think tanks -- these are the individuals who have not only been trained in the university studies but also trained in their intelligence background and trained in all types of perspective to focus on China as an enemy,” Rickard noted.   

“So the individuals even though they are at the highest level across the different government operations, they really don’t have the same government perspective that one might have that saw the larger picture,” he pointed out.

“And I think that’s what we have here. We have the individuals who are given press time in the United States that show a very myopic view of the situation whereby the Chinese are acting absolutely within their right, and they are certainly agreeable to cooperating with the United States on cyber security issues,” he said.

“So it is very disingenuous the way Mike Rogers laid out the situation and it is also very disingenuous the way the US media portrays the situation with China,” he concluded. 

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