U.S. CIA Director Candidate "The toughest security environment...North Korea, Security Unstable Forces"

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) candidate John Ratcliffe said North Korea remains a destabilizing force for U.S. security.

"We are facing one of the most difficult national security environments in the history of the United States," Ratcliffe said in his opening remarks at a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on the 15th local time.

Ratcliffe points out that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to dominate the world economically, technologically and militarily, and says the CIA should focus on and increase its intensity on threats from China and the CCP.

Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence at the end of the first Trump administration, stressed at the time that China called it the biggest threat to U.S. national security and publicly warned it.

During their confirmation hearings, Republican lawmakers called for countermeasures, pointing out that the CIA's ability to gather intelligence has weakened under the Biden administration.

Rep. Susan Collins pointed out that she was surprised by South Korea's declaration of emergency martial law, citing the CIA's weakening intelligence function, and Ratcliffe said she knew the CIA's human intelligence collection was not done properly.