Last week John Ratcliffe, Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, claimed the Chinese government is conducting biological testing on its own soldiers in order to dominate the planet "economically, militarily and technologically".

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Mr Ratcliffe said China has been using the gene-editing tool CRISPR to modify human embryos to breed military personnel capable of fighting harder, longer, and more efficiently.

The allegation was met with shock and widespread disbelief, but now more intelligence experts have corroborated that it's more than possible - and the ramifications could be severe.

NBC'S National Security Correspondent Ken Dilanian said it's "not something China is broadcasting publicly" in an interview on Monday.

"I was initially sceptical of this but I started poking around and found that some military experts in the think tank world have written about this," he said.

"They've found public comments by Chinese scientists and Chinese generals who talk about their interest in applying biotechnology to the battlefield and specifically using the CRISPR gene-editing technique to manipulate human DNA in a way that can enhance performance.