Part of the Chinese Communist Party's army of "internet trolls" in an undated leaked photo, in Fangzheng County, Harbin City, China. (The Epoch Times)

During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing this week, former Trump deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger said the CCP has stolen Americans' sensitive data via illicit methods, including cyber theft and hacking.

"Assembling dossiers on people has always been a feature of Leninist regimes, but Beijing's penetration of digital networks worldwide, including using 5G networks … has really taken this to a new level," Pottinger said, referring to former Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin.

With the information the CCP has obtained, he said, it "now compiles dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the world, using the material that it gathers to influence, target, intimidate, reward, blackmail, flatter, humiliate, and ultimately divide and conquer."

Going a step further, Pottinger sounded the alarm that "Beijing's stolen sensitive data is sufficient to build a dossier on every single American adult and on many of our children too, who are fair game under Beijing's rules of political warfare."

Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger arrives for a Medal of Honor ceremony for Sergeant Major Thomas P. Payne, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Sept. 11, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

For years, the CCP has engaged in campaigns to steal U.S. intellectual property and technology secrets in a bid to militarily and geopolitically gain an advantage over the West.

The regime has also carried out significant hacks against private entities, including last month's alleged cyberattack against Microsoft—which the United States and its allies blamed on the Chinese Ministry of State Security. In addition, four Chinese nationals were charged by the Department of Justice over a number of separate cyber intrusions that targeted corporate and research secrets.