DNI Avril Haines describes China as an 'unparalleled priority for the intelligence community'

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Wednesday described China as "an unparalleled priority for the intelligence community" during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing.

"China increasingly is a near-peer competitor, challenging the United States in multiple areas while pushing to revise global norms in ways that favor the authoritarian Chinese system," Haines said, according to the Epoch Times. The Chinese regime "poses an increasingly formidable challenge to the U.S. role in global affairs," she said.

Haines indicated that the intelligence community still has not determined the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the outlet, which reported, "On the question of how the COVID-19 pandemic originated, Haines confirmed that the intelligence community does not have an answer. She acknowledged the two alternative theories about how it spread—by transmission from animals or through a lab leak—adding that agencies were continuing to collect information to try to get to the bottom of the question." 

CIA Director William Burns added, "one thing that's clear to us … is that Chinese leadership has not been fully forthcoming or fully transparent in working with the WHO or in providing the kind of original complete data that would help answer those questions [about the virus origins]."