The director of Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency cautioned on Tuesday that Western nations must take action to safeguard their values and influence against China's growing technological superiority, which he described as "an increasingly urgent problem."
Jeremy Fleming stated that "technology has become not just an area for opportunity, for competition and for collaboration. It has become a battlefield for control, for values and for influence" in a lecture to the RUSI defense think-tank in London.
He noted China's push for technological supremacy in fields like satellite navigation, where it has the BeiDou system, and digital currencies, where it is introducing its "digital yuan."
China has been aggressively expanding its pilot program for central bank digital currency (CBDC), adding more provinces to the list. Over 264 million digital yuan transactions were performed in July 2022, according to reports. The number of merchant stores accepting digital yuan has surpassed 4.5 million.
The administration is eager to extend the CBDC throughout the entire country, with the harmonization of norms and standards being a main focus.
According to Fleming, the Chinese government sees such growth as "a tool to gain advantage through control of their markets, of those in their sphere of influence. And of course of their own citizens"
The head of the cybersecurity agency since 2017, Fleming encouraged Western nations to take action and make investments in cutting-edge technologies.
While stating that there is "no issue with the people of China and the Chinese community who contribute hugely to life here in the U.K." he stressed that the U.K. does not.
The agency chief warned that Western nations must be prepared to "offer alternative solutions that are practical, that are affordable and that are backed by international funding or market investment" as China gradually expands its influence and deploys its technology throughout the world, particularly in developing nations.
"China is using all of the levers it has to challenge the international post-war consensus on economics and technology," Fleming said. "They see nations as either potential adversaries or potential client states to be threatened, bribed or coerced."
China's reaction to snippets from Fleming's planned speech, which were released on Monday evening, was dismissive.
According to a foreign ministry representative, the charges "have no factual basis"
"China develops finance and technology in order to help the Chinese people enjoy better lives. It does not target anyone else and certainly does not constitute a threat," the spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
"Holding to the 'China threat' theory and fanning opposition and confrontation harms both oneself and others," Mao added.
