THE US’s new blame game against China regarding so-called cybersecurity breaches and attacks seems poised to disrupt the ongoing constructive pace and momentum between the two countries. The Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly criticized the baseless allegations made by the chief of the FBI, accusing him of intentionally creating hype about China’s supposed plans to disrupt US domestic infrastructure in the event of conflict over the Taiwan issue. Taiwan continues to be a point of contention, with the US seeking to assert itself in the Asia-Pacific region and interfere in China’s internal affairs. The timing of FBI Director Christopher Wray’s statement is significant, indicating that US intelligence and surveillance agencies have repeatedly highlighted the supposed threat posed by China to further their own interests in spying on other countries and bolstering espionage efforts against the American people. This game is complex and must ultimately reach a conclusion.
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 labelled 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 the 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.
Many reports and declassified documents indicate that US government departments such as the Department of Defence, CIA, and FBI heavily emphasize the “China threat theory” to secure increased funding and authority. This fixation on hyping the threat from China serves a strategic purpose, enabling agencies like the FBI to garner more power by convincing Congress of the dangers posed by China, potentially leading to expanded surveillance on US citizens. Consequently, this obsession with portraying China as a threat has detrimentally impacted China-US relations. Simultaneously, the US has been consistently launching cyber-attacks against China’s critical infrastructure, such as the targeting of the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Centre.
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 Centre (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 defence. 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 consistently targeted by cyber-attacks across 16 key industries, including education, government, scientific research, national defence and transportation. Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors have particularly focused on exploiting compromised resources in the education and scientific research sectors, utilizing stolen data and contact information to launch further precise attacks and expand their impact. Suggestions for US officials and hawkish politicians within the Biden Administration include refraining from involvement with Taiwan, avoiding conflict with China and respecting its sovereignty and internal affairs. Additionally, Chinese policymakers are advised to trace and counter every cyber-attack while bolstering defence systems, incorporating artificial intelligence for automated analysis, filtering and correlation of security events. Collaboration among various entities is crucial for an effective response to cyber threats. 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 writer is Executive Director, Centre for South Asia & International Studies, Islamabad, regional expert China, BRI & CPEC & senior analyst, world affairs, Pakistan Observer.
Email: mehmoodulhassankhan@yahoo.com
views expressed are writer’s own.
