China Increased U.S. Election Influence in 2022, Intelligence Report Says

The Chinese government stepped up its efforts to influence American politics in the 2022 election, a new report released on Monday said, and intelligence officials are trying to learn if Beijing is preparing to further intensify those activities in next year’s presidential election.

American intelligence agencies did not observe a foreign leader directing an interference campaign against the United States in 2022 in the same way Russia did in 2016. But, the report said, the U.S. government found an array of countries engaged in some kind of influence operations.

And Chinese authorities tacitly approved operations to influence a handful of political races in the United States in 2022, according to the report, which represents the intelligence agencies’ joint analytic assessment.

The intelligence agencies have already begun gearing up for influence efforts in the 2024 presidential election, which officials predict will be far more intense than those in 2022, with both China and Russia potentially trying to carry out major operations.

In an interview this month, Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, said 50 people at the two organizations he leads were “working together to generate insights” on the next election. One major question, he said, is whether China will intensify its work or change tactics.

“What’s the role of China in 2024?” General Nakasone said. “How do they come in? Is it a Russia model? Is it a model that they executed in 2022? Is it something we haven’t seen before?”