The United States has “strong indications” that Chinese leader Xi Jinping could be losing control over the gray zone “harassment” tactics that his military and paramilitary forces have been using against neighboring countries and the US, a senior intelligence officer warned today.
“We have strong indications that Xi Jinping — and I’m an intelligence guy — Xi Jinping is not aware of everything his security forces are doing,” Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, told an audience here at the Sea Air Space exposition. “We think it’s a function of the unwieldiness of China’s governance model. There are dangers of dictatorships.”