I don’t easily get aggravated over what I see in the news,
since this would leave me in an almost constant state of aggravation. In fact,
I don’t easily get aggravated by news of cyberattacks on US government agencies
that are conducted by other governments, since a lot of that has to be assigned
to the “We all do it” bucket – meaning all governments spy on each other. The reaction
in most of these cases should be to focus on building our defenses as high as
possible, which we’re doing constantly.
However this article
from the New York Times this morning did aggravate me, for three reasons.
First, the article made clear that the attacks described are being solicited directly
by the highest levels of the Chinese government, including Xi Jingping. Second,
the attacks aren’t just against the usual government and military targets
(since I assume the US government is launching them all the time against similar
targets abroad. At least, I hope they are). They’re equally against civilian
infrastructure and private businesses.
What I found most aggravating about the article is that
China seems to have deliberately given private organizations the green light to
launch whatever attacks they want against any targets, public or private, in
the US (and in other countries, of course). Moreover, the government encourages
these attacks by paying those organizations after the fact, when they produce
data or other results that the government considers particularly interesting
(or which might help Chinese companies get a leg up on their competition in the
US).
It's as if the Chinese government is saying, “Look, the US
is still our friend in theory, and we have lots of trade and other relations
with them. But we’re fine if you steal whatever you can from them, and from both public and private entitiets. Even if it mainly
benefits private Chinese businesses - in fact, especially if it does! They may complain a little, but they’ll be
beating a path to our door again real soon.”
There’s a name for a government that acts this way: “pirate
state”. That’s a government that encourages its most criminal elements to raid
and plunder the citizens of states with which the government is not officially
at war. In 2021, I said we need to start treating Russia like the pirate
state it is. I’m not sure we did anything to further that goal, but in
February 2022, Uncle Vlad made it very easy for us to treat them that way when
he invaded Ukraine. Of course, now they’re under lots of sanctions (although
evidently not enough), and the US is going to add more soon.
Unfortunately, China is turning more and more into a pirate
state themselves. Before they completely go off the deep end and launch massive
cyberattacks on the US (perhaps accompanying an invasion of Taiwan), we need to
take a much tougher line with them. So far, we’ve mostly greeted news of
Chinese attacks as just another reason to strengthen our defenses.
That needs to stop. These attacks are being driven from the
top, so we need to go to the top and make it clear we won’t stand for it. One
good step would be to remove from the table the idea that Xi will ever be
welcome to officially visit the US until he learns better manners. After all,
just delaying a visit by the Secretary of State last year seems to have struck a
chord with them. That delay was because of a balloon overflight, for heaven’s
sake. Isn’t what’s happening now a lot more serious?
Fortunately, I think China is more likely to listen to
reason – when it’s backed by clear evidence of firm intent – than Russia is.
Let’s help them along the path to righteousness, before it’s too late and we
have to cut off trade with them. That would be as disastrous for the US as it
would be for China.
Any opinions expressed in this
blog post are strictly mine and are not necessarily shared by any of the
clients of Tom Alrich LLC. If you would like to comment on what you have
read here, I would love to hear from you. Please email me at tom@tomalrich.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment