Vice President Mike Pence ramped up the pressure on Beijing with allegations of “malign” efforts to undermine Donald Trump ahead of the November 6 vote.
Mr Pence’s sabre-rattling speech at the Hudson Institute thinktank in Washington signalled a much tougher approach against China that extends beyond trade war rhetoric between the world’s two biggest economies and includes disputes such as cyber warfare, Taiwan and freedom of the seas.
He accused China of waging a sophisticated influence campaign against Mr Trump’s Republican Party in retaliation for his trade policies against Beijing.
He said: “China is meddling in America’s democracy.
“There is a comprehensive and co-ordinated campaign to undermine support for the president, our agenda and our nation’s most cherished ideals.
Mr Pence said Beijing had “mobilised covert actors, front groups, and propaganda outlets to shift Americans’ perception of Chinese policies” and was targeting its tariffs to hurt states where Mr Trump has strong support.
Washington blames China for hacking into US government and corporate databases although officials and independent analysts have failed to detected the kind of systematic manipulation of social media and hacking of emails that Russia is alleged to have engaged in before Mr Trump’s shock election victory in 2016.
Mr Pence said: “As a senior career member of our intelligence community recently told me, what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.”
Bloomberg Businessweek cited 17 unnamed intelligence and company sources as saying that Chinese spies had placed computer chips inside equipment used by about 30 companies, as well as multiple US government agencies, which would give Beijing secret access to internal networks.
Tech giants Apple and Amazon were among the companies named in the report but deny their systems have been compromised.
Mr Pence also accused China of “reckless harassment” after a near-miss involving a Chinese warship and the destroyer USS Decatur which was sailing within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea.
The Vice President said a Chinese naval vessel came within 45 yards of the Decatur “as it conducted freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, forcing our ship to quickly manouevre to avoid collision”.
He said: “The United States Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows and our national interests demand.
“We will not be intimidated. We will not stand down.”
The operation was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate.
China’s Defense Ministry said a Chinese naval ship had been sent to warn the US vessel to leave and that Beijing had irrefutable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and the waters around them.