Rep. Robert Aderholt, at a Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill, voiced his concerns to FBI Director Chris Way regarding Chinese economic espionage and intellectual theft that is occurring across the country.

“In 2019, the FBI estimated that the U.S. incurs annual losses ranging from $225 to $600 billion annually to illicit activities by China,” said Aderholt (R-Haleyville). “To put that in perspective, according to the president’s budget, across all agencies, the United States invested $142 billion in research and development.”

To further drive home his point to the director, Aderholt cited a surprising statistic.

“Think about that for a minute. In 2019, China stole at least twice the amount of money we spent on federal research and development,” he said.

Wray agreed with Aderholt on the level of threat that China poses to the US.

“As I’ve said consistently for years now, in my view there is no country that presents a more significant threat to our innovation, our ideas, our economic security, our national security than the Chinese government,” he said. “We’ve grown the number of investigations into threats from China by about 1,300%.”

Aderholt concluded his line of questioning by emphasizing the significance of countering the Chinese threat

“I want to stress the importance of doing everything we can to protect our investments,” he said.

Wray also revealed the FBI is opening an investigation related into Chinese espionage every 12 hours.

Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.