Annual report outlines Beijing’s growing military, cyber, and space warfare capabilities alongside ambitions to overtake U.S. dominance in AI.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

The U.S. intelligence community has identified China as the foremost military and cyber threat to the United States, warning in its newly released 2025 Annual Threat Assessment that Beijing poses a “comprehensive and robust” challenge to national security. The report, published Tuesday, underscores China’s continued advances in weapons systems, coercive pressure on Taiwan, and global campaigns to undermine U.S. leadership.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailed how Beijing is expanding its ability to strike the U.S. with conventional weapons, disrupt infrastructure through cyberattacks, and target American assets in space. The report also highlighted China’s strategic aim to outpace the U.S. in artificial intelligence by 2030. As AFP reports, China’s “wide-ranging cyber operations against U.S. targets” are part of an evolving effort to erode American influence both at home and abroad.

“China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat to U.S. national security,” the report states, pointing to a combination of military buildup, technological espionage, and political influence operations. It further warns that Beijing “will continue to expand its coercive and subversive malign influence activities” to destabilize U.S. interests globally.

The intelligence assessment outlines how the Chinese Communist Party sees the U.S. as leading a global campaign to isolate and discredit Beijing, and is responding with intensified efforts to challenge American diplomatic and strategic alliances. The report notes that China’s military is “making steady but uneven progress” in its preparedness for a potential invasion of Taiwan — a scenario that U.S. officials have repeatedly said could destabilize the entire Indo-Pacific region.

President Donald Trump has issued warnings regarding China’s aggressive posture, indicating that further escalation from Beijing would result in consequences from the United States. The report reinforces those concerns by assessing that China is actively preparing to counter U.S. military and intelligence capabilities in the Pacific theater.

While China was described as the top concern, the report also referenced threats from Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Russia, still engaged in its war with Ukraine, is using the conflict as a live battlefield to study Western tactics and weapons systems, gaining “a wealth of lessons regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in a large-scale war,” according to the assessment.

The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment delivers a broad summary of national security threats facing the U.S., based on intelligence collected from across federal agencies. It reflects the consensus of the nation’s top analysts on how foreign adversaries are evolving their strategies to challenge U.S. dominance in a range of domains.

The full report is available via the Office of the Director of National Intelligence here.