Opinion Cyber spy vs spy
Tensions in the US-China relationship are increasingly being played out online.
In a demonstration of the fractious relationship between the US and China, the US department of justice indicted five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army, accusing them of stealing secrets from several American companies, including Westinghouse and the United States Steel Corporation. Beijing reacted with predictable anger, drawing attention to Washington’s own proven predilection for cyber espionage after the Edward Snowden revelations.
That the DoJ’s symbolic move — the likelihood of China turning over the alleged hackers is close to nil — has touched off a diplomatic storm signals both the Obama administration’s frustration with China’s consistent and frequent forays into American private and state networks and China’s indignation at what it considers to be hypocritical behaviour on the part of the US.
The US attorney general, Eric Holder, argued that while there exists a tacit understanding that countries will routinely employ all means at their disposal, cyber or otherwise, to gather intelligence on each other’s activities for national security, this unwritten code exempts the use of state-run intelligence for intellectual property theft or for commercial advantage. But perhaps this distinction is lost on the Chinese, given that there, most enterprises are state-owned. Washington’s legal and diplomatic gamble could backfire spectacularly, with retaliatory attacks on American companies. China is also reported to have cancelled a cyber-espionage working group with the US, which will only deepen the chill.
Cyberspace is increasingly emerging as a new front where tensions in the US-China bilateral relationship are playing out. China’s apprehensions about the US sabotaging its rise — which it insists is peaceful — by getting involved in its various territorial disputes, and the American commitment to underwriting its allies’ security from threats posed by an aggressive China suggest that such skirmishes are likely to only grow in number, and perhaps in intensity.
Share
