Thursday, February 22, 2024

It’s time to give China the pirate state treatment it deserves


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.

My book "Introduction to SBOM and VEX" is available now on Amazon, in paperback and Kindle editions.

 

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