President Trump recently accused the Chinese of interfering in American politics ahead of the midterm elections. “They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade,” he said, addressing the United Nations Security Council. He provided no evidence, and appeared to be complaining mostly about retaliatory tariffs by the Chinese government, which may hurt constituencies that support him, and an advertorial touting U.S.-China trade in an Iowa newspaper.

In a speech to the Hudson Institute on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence doubled down on the accusation, arguing that China “has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential elections.” Neither the president nor the vice president charged China with stealing and releasing politically sensitive emails or manipulating social media, as the Russian government appears to have done to sway the 2016 presidential election.

And the Chinese government has not yet tried to use cyberspace to disrupt American elections, it seems. Yet the threat is real.

China has both the playbook and the capacity to interfere. Chinese entities operating with the assent of the government in Beijing already have mounted long-running cyberespionage campaigns against United States government agencies, the defense industry and American private companies. And they have conducted disruptive cyberattacks on political processes and social media campaigns in targets the Chinese government considers internal: Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan.