![]() ![]() First, cyber espionage actors enjoy a measure of anonymity, and second, there are often few consequences if they are caught conducting cyber espionage for those operating outside the US.ĭeterring such behavior is a key objective that might be achievable by a policy targeted at domestic institutions and against cyber criminals abroad. Cyber espionage has come into vogue for two reasons. Two forms of economic espionage must be addressed: those acts that physically occur within US borders, and those which are conducted from abroad through cyber means. The question US policy makers must now ask is not how we got into this mess, but how we get out of it.Ĭhinese president Xi Jinping in military uniform. The concerns of a handful of strategic thinkers were largely ignored while the US intelligence, law enforcement and defense bureaucracies circled the wagons around their precious secrets, totally ignoring the strategic shift in the importance of commercial technology and economic trade secrets.Ĭongress and successive presidents also share responsibility for the current situation, which has led to serious degradation in America’s global position and security. Now everything is made commercially and globally.” No one knew this strategic shift better than former Defense Secretary Ash Carter: “When I first got into this business everything of consequence that was made was in the US and the really important stuff was made by the Department of Defense. The lesson one learns in government is that innovative and strategic thinking usually gets in the way of short-term mission accomplishment. For decades, insiders (myself included) have highlighted the strategic shift in growth and importance of commercial technology and the impact on the economy. wealth is the fault of the US government. ![]() The current free-for-all of economic espionage, technology theft, and transfer of U.S. Shakespeare wrote “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but within ourselves.” He was right. In Russia and Iran that practice is common, In China, it has become a national sport. and many allies do not participate in economic espionage and technology theft with the intent of transferring wealth. Every time an intelligence service conducts espionage in another country, it violates that country’s laws, and that includes US intelligence overseas. Violating a country’s laws is nothing new in the murky world of espionage. laws in the quest to possess or sell U.S. ![]() It would seem many governments and people are quite willing to violate U.S. alliesengage in systematic, government-sponsored economic espionage (trade secrets, intellectual property theft) and technology theft. One has to note Beijing’s creativity and management in combining all the elements of ‘societal power,’ including manipulating financial markets, economic incentives, industrial policy, political and economic coercion, foreign policy, threat of military force, and technological strength to create the world’s first “digital authoritarian state.” It is unfortunate that the West has largely been the source of this growing strength.Ĭhina is not the only country to engage in such practices. The result for the United States: the loss of millions of US jobs, degradation of American industry, the rise of Beijing’s global political and economic clout, and a significant increase in China’s high tech military capabilities. I combed through more than 400 cases of Chinese espionage and detailed the outlines of the People’s Republic of China’s national effort to collect foreign technology using state and Communist Party entities, state-owned enterprises, select universities, private companies and individuals. No-fly lists, worldwide travel limits, restrictions on universities against sharing data or working with suspected/known thieves, and more rigorous US Customs screening in China might help slow the greatest transfer of wealth in modern human history. Nick Eftimiades, a retired senior intelligence officer and now a lecturer at Penn State Harrisburg, offers a detailed prescription below for how to blunt Chinese economic and cyber espionage. ![]() Chendgu J-20 fighter prototypes, considered suspiciously similar to the American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ![]()
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