Watching China
This story about the Chinese hacking into the Pentagon is discomfiting.
If we are paying a price for prosecuting the war on terror so aggressively, it is that our focus on Islamofascism may be leading us to overlook the very real threat that China increasingly poses to US security.
Because of our trade relationship with the People's Republic, politicians are as hesitant as business is to rock the boat. But it requires either blindness or wilful naivete to ignore the signs that China is bent on becoming a not-entirely-friendly global rival to the US on not just the economic and trade fronts -- but militarily, as well.
If we are paying a price for prosecuting the war on terror so aggressively, it is that our focus on Islamofascism may be leading us to overlook the very real threat that China increasingly poses to US security.
Because of our trade relationship with the People's Republic, politicians are as hesitant as business is to rock the boat. But it requires either blindness or wilful naivete to ignore the signs that China is bent on becoming a not-entirely-friendly global rival to the US on not just the economic and trade fronts -- but militarily, as well.
posted by LadybugUSA at 9:04 AM
2 Comments:
Two points:
1. We're still not sure how much of the Chinese hacking is government-sponsored. Most of the malicious Internet activity is coming from China, Russia, and the Eastern European countries. The Russian hacking is mostly criminal in nature; the Eastern European hacking is more hackers screwing around. We just don't know what portion of the Chinese hacking is coming from the Chinese government and what portion is coming from, shall we say, independent Chinese patriots.
2. We should never forget that the operative term here is "rival", not "enemy". The Chinese are definitely out to establish political hegemony over East Asia. We have little reason to believe that they want to build an empire -- they want hegemony, not annexation. We should also remember that the Chinese are very deft geopoliticians, far superior to Mr. Bush, and have been outmaneuvering us in a number of areas. Their success with the SCO is a particular cause for concern. But if we take a blunderbuss approach and start treating them like a military enemy, we'll be playing right into their hands.
Imagine that! We'd never try to spy on them.
US sneak & peeks are just the way our big brother keeps a close eye on us to prevent grandma and grandpa from getting feisty and doing something unpatriotic like becoming peace activists.
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