China Taking on U.S. in Cyber Arms Race

Pabugs writes with a CNN story about an uncomfortable development in world politics and information technology. According to General Robert Elder, an Air Force military man setting up a 'cyber command' in Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force Base, the nation of China is already in the process of developing their own 'cyber warfare' techniques. While Elder described the bulk of China's operations as focusing on espionage, they and others around the world have more serious goals in mind. "The Defense Department said in its annual report on China's military power last month that China regarded computer network operations -- attacks, defense and exploitation -- as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. China's People's Liberation Army has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Pentagon said. China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said."

No surprise to those watching China

China can be expected to increase strategic intelligence operations with respect to the United States and its other adversaries, especially as it continues its campaign for "multi-polarity". China employs a wide range of intelligence efforts with respect to the United States, many of which can be traced directly to intelligence capabilities within China's military and government establishment. Because China believes that the United States is a primary adversary, even as the US provides a good deal of the facilitation of China's growth, China can still be expected to continue and increase its strategic intelligence operations with respect to the US.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, China in some ways became the de facto ideological leader of the worldwide Communist movement. China found that it could use international Communist groups and networks, just as the Soviets did, to find persons sympathetic to the causes of Communism and socialism. Indeed, China has actively interacted with and supported international Communists, even persons or organizations known to be involved in criminal activities such a counterfeiting and money laundering. Chinese government officials have been known to meet with those in Communist organizations and student groups abroad, and there are indications such resources are leveraged in a similar fashion as with Russian intelligence.

As something of a flag bearer for world Communism, Beijing has become a "second Rome for Marxism-Leninism". China's Communists, much like the former Soviet Union's, believe world socialism is inevitable and that the Americans are a symbol of what is standing in their way. With the Soviets, the watchword was American "imperialism"; with the Chinese, American "hegemony". However, the Chinese also understand that many in the United States and the West in general view Communism negatively. As such, resources are also devoted to putting forth the images of Capitalism and quasi-democratic ideals, even as the vast populace of China enjoys no such benefit therefrom.

Part of China's strategic campaign is aided by its own system of government. As a system of government with control over much its own press, and even considerable influence over foreign press, China is executing an internal propaganda campaign against the United States with China's own people. At any opportunity, US intentions are painted as at best questionable and at worst aggressive and malicious. This environment, over time, will continue to enhance any support among the general populace for anti-US policy, or actions that must be taken against the United States, possibly with respect to quasi-autonomous disputed areas, such as Taiwan. Without access to multiple viewpoints on a situation, the Chinese people are fed a picture of the world as the Communist leadership wants it seen. Today, that includes mass censorship of the internet, and any sites associated with resistance movements, reformist groups, human rights organizations, and so on.

The propaganda does not stop at China's borders. The effort extends internationally, as China labors to appear clothed in the ideals of Capitalism and free markets - which it, in turn, knows will be seen by many experts as indicative of the decline of Communism. Some propaganda operations are not so subtle, with international news organizations living under the threat of losing their Beijing presence if information that is perceived too negative is published about China.

The continuing enhancement of these ideas lead to easing of trade restrictions, which in turn increases the transfer of high technology into China, and, especially, the finances so critically needed for the silent buildup of China's strength, military and otherwise. China is diligently working to continue to build its conventional army and navy, while also growing its strategic and high technology military capabilities. Chinese military theorists have envisioned new battlefields, where conflict does not happen in open warfare but also on the Internet, via the worl

Re:No surprise to those watching China

& the U.S. doesn't do any of this?

I swear, we as Americans are so freaking self-righteous! We're the ONLY ones that can protect "our" internet. We're the ONLY ones who can monetarily profit from the expansion of China. We're the ONLY ones who should own nuclear weapons & should dictate who else can & can't!

I'd give you a +1 just for the length if your long, drawn-out diatribe wasn't riddled with subtle rifts of "I'm American, Hear me Roar!" You speak of "the spread of propaganda" & the use of "deception, disinformation & influence" by the Chinese yet we, as Americans, have been doing it for MUCH longer! As Robert Burns said in a poem:
"Ah that there would be someone to give us Eyes to see ourselves as others see us"

Re:No surprise to those watching China

It's comfortable on the chair of moral relativism, isn't it?

If you believe that Communism and freedom and democracy are just two sides of the same coin, I can see your line of reasoning. Sure, Capitalism is in the mix as well, but Captialism only exists and flourishes in a manifestly free society. Some believe that neither model is "better"; just different - the old "Under Communism, man exploits man - under Capitalism, it's the other way around" bit.

Thankfully, many people don't see it that way, and have recognized the benefits of freedom, free access to information, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and so on. Sure, freedom is tempered with the rule of law, and no system of government is perfect, but to quote Winston Churchill, "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Re:No surprise to those watching China

It's comfortable on the chair of moral relativism, isn't it? If you believe that Communism and freedom and democracy are just two sides of the same coin, I can see your line of reasoning.

And this right here folks is why propaganda is a bad idea. Sure it can help you sway citizens to your cause, but in the end the populace is a bunch of people whose ideas are so clouded by the propaganda and emotions tied to it, they don't even understand the terms they are discussing.

Communism is an economic system akin to capitalism. It, in fact, co-exists with capitalism on some level in every nation on earth. Did you grow up in a family where your parents and the children shared resources and allocated them as a group? That is a very small communist cell operating within a larger capitalist economy. The US currently and always has been a nation of widespread communism. The term "communism" in the US, however, has been assigned a different meaning. Ironically, that meaning is "a totalitarian government that advocates extreme socialism." Socialism is also an economic system and one also in widespread use in every nation on earth. Public schools, roads, police, the military, welfare, prisons, etc. are all examples of socialism. Even more confusingly, the term "socialism" in the US has been co-opted to mean any socialist program that is new and not something we've always had and don't consider.

Every economy is a blend of capitalism, communism, and socialism. The economic system you have and how it favors those three components does not determine what type of government you have, but it does influence it. For example, economies that favor extreme socialism, like the former soviet union and current day China (although in decreasing amounts) have more consolidated decision making. That is consolidated power. The more of this that exists, the easier it is for a totalitarian regime to seize that power. For this reason, democracies that favor socialism to extreme extents, tend to fail and become totalitarian states (dictatorships and oligarchies).

Sure, Capitalism is in the mix as well, but Captialism only exists and flourishes in a manifestly free society.

You have it backwards. As I explained, moderate capitalism helps to prevent a totalitarian regime from taking over the government and it lends itself to the overthrow of those regimes, although not necessarily to democracy.

Some believe that neither model is "better"; just different

Your fallacy is in equating capitalism with democracy and in failing to see that all economies are a blend of the three economic systems. Favoring any one of those three models to an extreme leads to a breakdown of the system. Too much capitalism leads to wealth condensation, where all the money and hence power consolidates into only a few hands, thus also making it easy for a totalitarian regime to take over and motivates the people to aid in overthrowing those in power (since it is the only way to return to a more level economic playing field). The US is perilously close to that end of the spectrum right now, as wealth disparity continues to rise in this country.

Thankfully, many people don't see it that way, and have recognized the benefits of freedom, free access to information, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and so on.

Sadly, very few people in the US see much of anything clearly when the term "communist" is mentioned, even when applied to an extreme socialist state like China. How often do you see the press point out and explain the difference?

...to quote Winston Churchill, "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

I agree with him. I just don't conflate democracy with capitalism as you seem to. One is a system of government and one is an economic system. Extreme capitalism can just

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There was nothing in that post that took a decidedly pro-american stance. The poster could easily be from any country in the free world.

The fact is that china puts a lot of energy into it's relationship with the US, and vice versa.

What China is doing, rath

Right, well done.

& the U.S. doesn't do any of this?

No, it doesn't. It does a bit here and there but it has no effective overall strategy.

I swear, we as Americans are so freaking self-righteous!

You misspelled either 'complacent' or 'doomed' but I don't know which; either would make sense.

You speak of "the spread of propaganda" & the use of "deception, disinformation & influence" by the Chinese yet we, as Americans, have been doing it for MUCH longer!


No, you haven't. You want to think you have, but you haven't. There has never been an American propaganda initiative that was 5% as effective as the Chinese PR machine for their attack on India. You wish you could do it (and then you'd have fun feeling all guilty about it) but you can't. Do you think the Iraq strategy would be in such a mess if you could do what the Chinese did in 1962?

I know of what I speak. So can you, if you read Xinhua every day. Just read it. After a few months, you will start to believe. It is a whole other history, a whole other way of looking at the world. America has nothing like it. That is why America is losing; that is why America is cast as the bad guy when they invade one lousy country for oil or whatever, and China gets to flatten the whole of central Asia, northeast Asia, and half Africa as far as I can see by this point, and yet remain Teh Cool.

You lost already. Going "oh but we are so bad for employing these elite evil technologies and techniques, teehee, oh wicked wicked us for being so kickass" does not help. Watch Fox, watch CNN, watch Al-Jazeera, even watch the BBC if you have to, and you will see different spins, different biases, different points of view. Watch Xinhua even in English and you will see a different reality. "Tibetan People Bask In Glow Of Rosy Future". When you can come up with a headline like that and have 1/3 of the world take it as truth, THEN you will be making progess.

Re:No surprise to those watching China

China in some ways became the de facto ideological leader of the worldwide Communist movement

Communist? Certainly they're still authoritarian, but China hasn't been communist in decades.

 

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Communist? Certainly they're still authoritarian, but China hasn't been communist in decades.

I don't even know where to go with this, except to say that you are a shining example of everything I just said in the very post to which you responded.

And if you'

Re:

Thanks for continuing to prove my point. China's leadership is just as Communist, in ideal and much of the practice, as they ever were. "Red-baiting" has nothing to do with it. Call the leadership pragmatic if you wish, but China is still solidly a Communi

Re:No surprise to those watching China

*Sigh*

Yeah, China has pockets of Capitalism where it's convenient. Even to the extreme in some cases. They also leverage Hong Kong in this respect to great advantage. Capitalism where it benefits the goals of furtherance of the ideals of the Chinese leadership.

And as I just said in another post:

The United States has pockets of what could be called "socialism" in government and government programs. Does that mean the United States is socialist, or isn't Capitalist/Democratic? Of course not. To say that the existence of elements traditionally antithetical to pure "Communism" is proof that China is no longer "Communist" completely misses the larger point, and ignores the fact that China actually has significant intelligence programs dedicated to making people outside of China believe they are no longer Communist, and hint: it's not because they "really aren't any more".

It's interesting folks like yourself think it's all about "red-baiting", or artificially calling the Chinese "Communists" because it makes them a more palatable adversary. China has invested a significant amount of intelligence resources over the last twelve or so years into making people erroneously believe that they have abandoned Communism and are really now a quasi-Capitalist state, because they know that appears "friendly" to the West, and primarily to the United States. This is thoroughly and well-documented, and your refusal to believe that might actually be the case is interesting.

Re:No surprise to those watching China

As something of a flag bearer for world Communism, Beijing has become a "second Rome for Marxism-Leninism"

A 'second Rome', or a 'Constantinople'?

I don't ask to be some semantical nazi or anything, but this phrase piqued my interest a bit... When Rome basically went splat and fell into the dark ages, Constantinople was basically it. There are a lot of the same parallels, too - The Eastern Roman Empire wasn't nearly as outgoing, wan't nearly as -how do I put it- 'extroverted'? Also, Rome wasn't nearly as refined. The paralels are starting to pile up at this point.

China does do one thing different, though - it welcomes outsiders and uses as much as it can from them. It also exists in a far different geopolitical environment.

I also think that China's political system is (slowly) being changed over time, and could not survive for long if a hard enough adversity hit them - either politically or economically. Something on the order of the Great Depression (a global one, like in the early 1930's) would likely foment some very bad mojo in Beijing, and traditional tolerance by the masses aside, I don't think the Chinese gov't could withstand it w/o either collapsing or going back to the iron fist.

I guess that, while it is good that the West does see them as something to be reckoned with, I believe that the Chinese political system is an increasingly fragile one, but will hold up - as long as times are good.

/P

the chinese are old school authoritarian

they don't represent an ideological threat they represent a power center threat. that's a big, fundamental difference, and a crucial one in how to view china

ideologically, the chinese are severely compromised: a communist system only in name. in actuality

Re:No surprise to those watching China

I don't even know where to start with this. You read a book which is clearly anti-china, and a defense journal, and you somehow think you understand the big picture of what's going on in China? Then when anyone tries to disagree with you, you say, "by disagreeing with me, you have thereby proved my point."

Reasons China is not communist:
- Most of the farmers own their own land, and can sell it if they want to.
- Most of the companies are privately owned, and there is PLENTY of competition (check out this month's national geographic [nationalgeographic.com] for a clear picture of the competition.)
- The government has been selling off the businesses they do own.
- If you actually go there, you may get the feeling all anyone cares about is money.

Your issue is not that China is communist, it is that China is authoritarian. You can't even get your terms straight (communism is not necessarily authoritarian at all). No one disagrees that an authoritarian China is a bad thing, however, you cannot deny that the situation is much better than it was in 1979 (read Wild Swans [amazon.com] and you will see how much better it has gotten). The hope is that with prosperity the situation will ease, and the Chinese will become more free and less authoritarian in a peaceful manner, much like what happened in Taiwan and South Korea in the 80s.

In the end, China IS going to become an international power, that cannot be stopped anymore than a center break can be stopped in chess when it is ripe. Of course they want a strong military to match the US. No one in the world likes to be pushed around by us. But what are we going to do to stop it? Bomb them? Bad idea. Stop trading with them? That will slow them down, but they have enough other trading partners that they would still grow rapidly, and it would hurt us more than them.

The only thing we can do is accept the fact that China is going to become a world power in the next few decades, and adjust our strategy appropriately. For better or for worse China is coming, and we are much better off spending our energy preparing for it than wasting our time in a hopeless effort to try to prevent it.

Probably get modded for Troll, but...

I gotta say that it feels like that particular war's started already, and it's just that nobody actually told us.

Whether intentional or just a result of all those pirated copies of Winderz, the sheer number of bot-net/zombie attacks coming from China is staggering.

Too bad the "Great Firewall of China" is so concerned about information going IN to the country... I guess its perfectly fine if a citizen's computer sends thousands of emails for v1@gr@ or posts a zillion commercial messages into someone's threaded discussions... Just as long as it doesn't inform the user of how they've got very little freedom and a horrible standard of living, or say anything bad about the Chinese gub'ment!

China owns a lot of US debt

I'm more concerned how much of the US debt china owns. Imagine china dumping all the debt and buying Euros. Pretty much most articles I have read said it would crush the dollar. That alone would probably be enough to start and end a war all at once.

easy

access list 110 deny ip any any

Victory.

Another strange twist in our China relationship

It'll be interesting to see what China (and Asia in general) does in the next 50 years. On one hand, they publicly denounce the US and treat us like an enemy. On the other, we've pretty much lost all of our manufacturing capability to them. No US producer can ignore their vast quantities of cheap labor and hospitable business climate. Now that the Communists have no real power there, what's going to fill in the void?

What will be even more interesting is a conflict that forces us to begin manufacturing domestically again. I wonder how long it'll take to ramp up all the factories that closed up during the last 30 years or so?

Any country on Earth with enough technological resources to protect would be stupid not to start thinking about ways to defend it in a conflict. China's no exception.

Re:Another strange twist in our China relationship

And if China decides to take all the factories and convert them to war production and drafts a lot of its billion citizens you've got a lot of military power quickly. Sure they won't be well trained or equipped but if anything the last couple of decades has shown better trained and equipped doesn't give you a huge advantage it once did.

Black Lotus has trained us well ...

.. there's always a way in ..

Outsourcing

A lot of US companies are outsourcing software development to China. Hardware vendors are moving the bulk of their manufacturing to China. At the same time, the US military is relying more and more on off the shelf software and hardware. Seems to me that there's ample opportunity for mischief (hidden trojans, etc.). Curious, that no one seems to be concerned about this.

yea...

I am an american studying in China, and can say that I have not seen a single legal copy of xp, music cds, dvds, software, or in fact, any electronic media. Even Chinese movies are nearly completely ripped off even though they cost about $1.5 USD. My friend bought a laptop here and it came with complimentary copies of photoshop, xp, office, and more. The environment here is nothing like you would picture communism to be. In fact, it isn't communism at all. Chinese communism means something entirely different than Soviet communism meant, just as democracy means something different to every country. The people here don't dislike the US. They are not brainwashed to do so. Most people simply do not care about big issues. There are definitely important international issues though. The Taiwan situation is a significant example. Taiwan is a hot issue here, but most people just want to make enough money to be able to buy more. True capitalists. Furthermore, the laws are completely different than the actual situation. Enforcement is selective, and many laws are not enforced at all. As to provide insight into the actual story: every major country has information security and warfare as a priority. Why would China not want to? Also, as far as China is concerned, Taiwan is a rogue state... why should security not be important in that context as well? China and the US are MAJOR trading partners. The US and the Soviet Union were not so much. The list goes on...

We got 'em beat

Forget the Chinese, we Canucks already have all your contractors pegged with our Supr-Dupr Spy Coins! All your base are belong to us!

Why does anyone believe anything that comes out of the Pentagon any more?

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It's pretty simple. All missiles have an IR port for commands. If there are infrared decoys, the enemy won't know which is the missile to hack! And an angle reflector will reflect the enemy's hacking signals right back at him (think shiny shield against

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"China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said."

The article said that in addition of all of this, they also invested in ECMs and general defenses against electronic attacks.

I see your point, but you could also consider that the infrared targetting systems are electronic also ... (chaffs are consid

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"Ok, could somebody please explain to me what classifies as a cyber-attack? It seems all these are applicable only to public Internet, not private networks. What's all the fuss?"

Day 1.) You, the lazy and over confident American, are preparing to release