China’s economic espionage has reached an intolerable level: US
The Times of India, 5 October 2011
WASHINGTON: Asserting that China’s economic espionage has reached an ‘intolerable level’ a top American lawmaker said it’s time that the US and its allies in Europe and Asia confront Beijing and demand to put an end to this piracy.
“China’s economic espionage has reached an intolerable level, and I believe the US and our allies in Europe and Asia have an obligation to confront Beijing and demand they put a stop to this piracy,” Congressman Mike Rogers, chairman of the house select committee on intelligence said at a Congressional hearing.
“Whether or not we will ever be able to convince Beijing to voluntarily stop their economic cyber espionage campaign and their predatory economic behaviour, we have a lot of work to do here in the US to improve our cyber security, including improving the sharing of cyber threat information with and between the government and the private sector,” he said.
He said that there was no precedence in history about such a massive and sustained intelligence effort by a government agency to blatantly steal commercial data and intellectual property.
Testifying before the House Committee, General Mike Hayden, former National Security Advisor (NSA) acknowledged that China was posing a threat in this area.
“In an incredibly perverse way, because China’s political culture is far different from ours, the odds of China more quickly and more facilely establishing effective cyber defenses is much greater than the odds of our doing it here in the US because of the political culture questions that I have suggested,” Hayden said.
Rogers, while convening the hearing, said media reports of networks of companies like Google and others being penetrated by Chinese government or cyber espionage activities was just the tip of the iceberg.
“There are more companies that have been hit that won’t talk about it to the press for fear of provoking further Chinese attacks,” he said.
“When you talk to these companies behind closed doors, however, they describe attacks that originate in China, have a level of sophistication that are clearly supported by a level of resources that can only be a nation-state entity.
“Attributing this espionage is not easy, but talk to any private sector cyber analyst and they’ll tell you that there is little doubt that this massive campaign is being conducted by the Chinese government,” he said.