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Chi­na pos­es the great­est threat to Amer­i­ca and the rest of the free world since World War II, out­go­ing Nation­al Intel­li­gence Direc­tor John Rat­cliffe said Thurs­day as the Trump admin­is­tra­tion ramps up anti-Chi­nese rhetoric to pres­sure Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden to be tough on Beijing.

“The intel­li­gence is clear: Bei­jing intends to dom­i­nate the U.S. and the rest of the plan­et eco­nom­i­cal­ly, mil­i­tar­i­ly and tech­no­log­i­cal­ly,” Rat­cliffe wrote in an op-ed pub­lished Thurs­day in The Wall Street Jour­nal. “Many of China’s major pub­lic ini­tia­tives and promi­nent com­pa­nies offer only a lay­er of cam­ou­flage to the activ­i­ties of the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Party.”

“I call its approach of eco­nom­ic espi­onage ‘rob, repli­cate and replace,’” Rat­cliffe said. “Chi­na robs U.S. com­pa­nies of their intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, repli­cates the tech­nol­o­gy and then replaces the U.S. firms in the glob­al marketplace.”