Ednews reprints the article "China-US ties and Cyber Security" by Dr. Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan.
It seems that the US new blame-game against China on the issue of so-called cyber security breach and attacks will again hurt ongoing constructive pace and momentum between two countries.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly criticized the baseless allegation made by the chief of the FBI, intentionally creating hype about China's plan to take down US' domestic infrastructure in the scenario of the two sides going to war over the Taiwan question. Thus Taiwan is still haunting the US desire to jump-in Asia Pacific region and try to interfere the internal affairs of China.
The timing of FBI director Christopher Wray’s statement has great significance which shows that US intelligence and surveillance agencies have plugged the so-called China’s threat again and again to maximize their own vested interests pertaining to spying on other countries and to strengthen espionage against the American people. Thus it is a tricky game which must have an end game.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin highlighted Chinese firm resolve to crack down on all forms of cyber-attacks in accordance with law. He termed the US current accusation invalid without any concrete evidence leading only towards an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations against China. He labeled it extremely irresponsible and is a complete distortion of facts. Therefore it does not have any validity and relevancy.
Ironically, while attending the US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the US and China the FBI director Christopher Wray hyped that China was designing an integrated hacking operation geared at striking down the US' civilian infrastructures such as power grid, oil pipelines and water systems.
It seems that by design, Wray claimed that China wanted to create confusion and would fight and hamper the American military from deploying resources if China and the US have a military conflict in the Taiwan Straits.
On the contrary, the US itself is the pioneer and the biggest mastermind and perpetrator of cyber-attacks around the globe. The US Cyber Force Command openly declared that the critical infrastructure of other countries is a legitimate target for US cyber-attacks.
Interestingly, China's cyber-security agencies have released various reports revealing the US government's long-running cyber-attacks against China's critical infrastructure which exposed its irresponsible policy and practices which exposed global critical infrastructure to huge risks. Therefore the US should stop its worldwide cyber espionage and cyber-attacks, and stop smearing other countries under the excuse of cyber security.
Evidently, the US has hyped the issue of cyber-security threat for many years, accusing China and Russia with no hard evidence. In fact, the US is also trying to legitimize its cyber-attacks against other countries, thus some of their politicians and policy makers believe that other countries are just doing the same to the US, but they failed to provide evidence.
According to many reports and declassified documents the US governmental departments such as the Department of Defense, the CIA and the FBI are fixated with hyping the so-called China threat theory in all issues and by virtue of this asking for more funds and more power. Thus there has been a method behind this madness which shows the game rule of US politics.
Agencies like the FBI will be further empowered if it makes Congress members believe its claim about threats from China, and may even acquire more power to watch on US citizens. Resultantly, China-US relations have been sacrificed by those selfish politicians in the power.
Meanwhile, the US has been constantly launching cyber-attacks against China's critical infrastructure. The Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center, for example, has been targeted.
According to a new investigative report by the city's Emergency Management Bureau, after a joint investigation team formed by the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) and Chinese cyber-security company 360 discovered malevolent backdoor software that showed characteristics of US intelligence agencies.
The annual cyber-security report of the Chinese firm 360 Security Group indicated that more than 1,200 APT attacks from 13 foreign APT organizations targeted China during 2023. The report showed that cyber-attacks affecting China occurred in 16 industries, with education being the most frequent target.
Moreover, throughout 2023 it detected over 1,200 APT attack incidents targeting China from 13 foreign APT organizations, mainly based in North America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
Generally, APT organizations are not ordinary individual hackers, but high-level professional forces represented by state-level hacker organizations and some even have direct involvement from national or political powers.
Usually, APT organizations not only continuously monitor and engage in espionage activities against national governments and critical departments but also deepen threats to a country's politics, economy, society, and defense. Once APT organizations launch cyber-attacks on the entire infrastructure of a country, it may lead to paralysis of transportation, banking, aviation, and hydroelectric systems, causing serious impacts on national political stability and economic development.
It showed that APT organizations from the US have already demonstrated automated, systematic, and intelligent characteristics in their global cyber-attacks. Their attack techniques are able to cover almost all internet and IoT assets worldwide. They can control foreign networks and steal critical data, serving their military and political espionage objectives.
In summary, new hype created by FBI director Christopher Wray has numerous socio-economic, geopolitical and geostrategic spillover repercussions especially for the emerging bilateral relations between China and USA.
China has been in the line of fire from the cyber-attacks affecting its 16 industries mainly education, government, scientific research, national defense and military industry, and transportation.
The APT targeted the education and scientific research fields of China and exploited compromised resources, such as stolen document data and contact information, to carry out further precise attacks and expand the success of the attack.
It is suggested that US officials and hawkish politicians sitting in Joy Biden government should simply stay away from Taiwan and avoid creating conflict with China and avoid interfering in its internal affairs and sovereignty.
It is also suggested that the Chinese policy makers should try to trace every cyber-attack and strengthen the defense systems. Artificial intelligence technologies must be adopted to enable automated analysis, filtering, and correlation of security events. Formation of a strong collaborative force would be a best choice to respond to cyber-attacks.
The future human survival and world’s prosperity, stability and peace heavily rest on modernization, innovation, digitalization and artificial intelligence thus power grabbers and money minting machines of the US should avoid hyping and smearing against China and jointly work for a safer, secure and prosperous world.
The author is Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan, Executive Director of The Center for South & International Studies (CSAIS) Islamabad
