WASHINGTON (AFP) - Chinese efforts to exert covert influence over the West are just as concerning as Russian subversion, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency Director has said.
Mr Mike Pompeo told the BBC that the Chinese "have a much bigger footprint" to carry out such covert activities than the Russians do.
In an interview published on Monday (Jan 29), he also said that Russian election interference has not stopped and Moscow can be expected to meddle in the 2018 US vote.
"Think about the scale of the two economies," Mr Pompeo said of Russia and China.
"The Chinese have a much bigger footprint upon which to execute that mission than the Russians do."
Earlier this year, a former CIA officer was arrested on charges of retaining classified information in a case thought to be connected to the dismantling of the agency's spy operations in China.
In the two years before Jerry Chun Shing Lee's arrest, some 20 informants had been killed or jailed - one of the most disastrous failures of US intelligence in recent years.
But officials did not know at the time whether to blame a mole or data hack.
The US spy chief told the BBC countries could collectively do more to combat Chinese efforts to exert power over the West.
"We can watch very focused efforts to steal American information, to infiltrate the United States with spies - with people who are going to work on behalf of the Chinese government against America," he said.
We see it in our schools. We see it in our hospitals and medicals systems. We see it throughout corporate America. It's also true in other parts of the world... including Europe and the UK."
On Russia's meddling in US elections, he said: "I haven't seen a significant decrease in their activity."
"I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that, but I'm confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election (and) that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won't be great," he said.
The leading US intelligence agencies concluded at the end of 2016 that Russian President Vladimir Putin had directed a broad intelligence effort to influence the presidential election that year to undermine the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton and boost Donald Trump's chances.
That effort included hacking and releasing e-mails and documents from the Clinton campaign and filling social media with posts and "news" items aimed at discrediting her.
Mr Trump has repeatedly dismissed the idea that Moscow helped him - and allegations his campaign colluded with the Russians - as fake news.
Mr Pompeo, whom Mr Trump appointed to the US spy agency, has deftly avoided that controversy while emphasising he accepts the conclusions of his predecessor.
The 2018 midterm elections will involve all of the 435 members of the House of Representatives and 33 senators.
In the elections, minority Democrats will be battling to try and prise control of the two Houses from Trump's Republicans.
