On Wednesday China’s official news agency Xinhua said a hacking attack into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that compromised data on more than 22 million federal workers was criminal, and not state-sponsored. In June 2015, U.S. intelligence Chief James Clapper said of the OPM cyber-attack , that it was carried out by Chinese hackers. He did not specifically accuse China’s government. In private experts in cyber-security are stating it was sponsored by China even though China’s government denies it.
Should China be believed? Just today the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported a major cyber-attack by China against Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology occurred which may have compromised potentially sensitive national security information.
Serious problems are occurring in the United States when it comes to economic espionage and trade secrets. The United States is hemorrhaging technological superiority, business savvy and an economic edge to foreign nations who are intent on gaining financial and military superiority over us by stealing.
Chinese theft of valuable U.S. trade secrets are robbing this country of nearly 400 billion dollars a year in business revenue and potentially 500,000 jobs a year. This figure doesn’t even take into account the billions of dollars stolen from our Five-Eye allies, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K, whom are dealing with the same problem of intrusion and theft, most often obtained by sophisticated cyber-attacks methods.
The Chinese government clearly has goals to build its economic superiority over the United States by tearing down the defenses of countries while it steals those nations’ research and development, intellectual property and U.S. technology. In past news-worthy incidents, five Chinese military officers have been charged by our U.S. Justice Department with economic espionage.
At one time China summoned the U.S. ambassador to its head government chambers in order that he could receive a ‘tongue-lashing’ because they felt the United States was being very hypocritical. Chinese officials state they have metrics that show massive cyber-attacks on Chinese systems originating from the U.S. Whether this is true or not ignores the true issue that China, like North Korea and Russia and other foreign nations, are in fact stealing information that doesn’t belong to it in order to run tightly ruled societies. Many might believe the U.S. is no better than China. Certainly the information taken by the U.S. is done in order to have superiority over nations that do not allow citizens the same amount of rights.
China is stealing sensitive trade secrets, internal communications for competitive advantage, and nuclear and solar technology. One of the more well known cases dealt with Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California and the theft of hard drives from the Department of Energy on President Clinton’s watch. Why would countries do this? The Chinese and other nations are doing this because they can make billions of dollars stealing by investing just a few million in dollars building a business infrastructure to commit the crime.
An example of this occured in recent news, “two Chinese citizens in Kansas City, Missouri, were charged with attempting to pay $100,000 for stolen trade secrets from Pittsburgh Corning Corp, an affiliate of PPG Industries Inc. and Corning Inc.,” at its Sedalia, Mo. facility. These trade secrets were stolen with the intent of building a rival plant in China. Rival plants can build exactly what we build and it can be done with cheap labor, slave labor and little in the way of any international uproar. The United States not only imports Chinese products but it exports products as well, and no politician is willing to challenge the issue of espionage, or the issue of our huge offset GDP, without having to defend the growth of the U.S. as a proponent of espionage either; it is a quiet detent.
Economic espionage is (1) whoever knowingly performs targeting or acquisition of trade secrets to (2) knowingly benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent. Theft of trade secrets is (1) whoever knowingly performs targeting or acquisition of trade secrets or intends to convert a trade secret to (2) knowingly benefit anyone other than the owner. Commonly referred to as industrial espionage. Some say China is stealing $400 billion worth of sensitive information a year.
The NCE report cited the case of paint company Valspar, which lost $20 million, or one-eighth of its annual profit, after its proprietary information was stolen by a Chinese rival. Some hacked companies have contracts with the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies, putting classified information at risk. For nearly a decade, hackers had access to the computer network of telecommunications company Nortel Networks. If, as suspected, China was behind the criminal breach, it likely gained valuable insight into the internet and telephone systems that government agencies, banks, and other businesses rely on.
China is not our friend and must be locked out of sensitive deals with regards to security. China has played a central role in the decline of our economy by manipulating their currency, buying up our companies and competing directly with American goods. Sadly, we have allowed China to do this, and are enslaved to the Chinese government via debt. Hacking is only one part of Chinese theft into America’s pockets. The hits just keep on coming. President Obama states he is going to handle this situation. Let’s see how it plays out.