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China’s Spying Poses Rising Threat to U.S.
- aszantu 7y agoI wonder why there is such a push against china now... This post rising to the top like this without points and discussions...
- sgift 7y agoMore people start to realize the risk of a dictatorship as a world power compared to ten years ago when it was all "they are such a big market" "You can get things cheap there" "It's a different culture"?
- supergirl 7y agoit would be considered a risk no matter what form of government. any rising superpower is a risk to the US.
- ethbro 7y agoHistory-ironically, I (as an American) would be less worried if Germany were rising at China's pace.
- repsilat 7y agoSimilarly, in the 90s everyone thought Japan was going to eclipse the US economically, and (to my recollection) they weren't seen as geopolitical rivals to the US. Maybe it has something to do with population size, but IMO it is more to do with their economic structure and system of government. Japan is a democracy, and they believe in markets. Since War 2 they also seem a little less pushy with their neighbours...
- supergirl 7y agothey can't be a rival to the US when their defense is provided by the US and they host 50k US military units (vs. 250k currently active units in the whole japanese army).
- changchuming 7y agoI don't think your recollection is entirely accurate. The Plaza Accords was signed for a reason.
- ethbro 7y agoInteresting fact. Circa-1910 (from memory) there was major anxiety about immigrant Japanese workers taking low-wage jobs in the US. To the extent that Japan was encouraged and did "voluntarily" limit migration. How the wheel of time turns... different players, same games.
- supergirl 7y agoYou say that now but if they had a credible army you'd have the same feeling. Right now Germany is toothless, still in the shadow of US occupation as losers of WW2. They have no independent foreign policy; they're choosing to stay out of it and focus on domestic issues. It is a similar story with Japan. But Japan is actually recently starting to be more active, building their army, with the goal of countering China.
- sgift 7y ago> They have no independent foreign policy Where do you get that idea? Germany is one of the most active countries in diplomacy and is at odds with the US all the time.
- chriselles 7y agoI think it’s because it is a legitimate problem. A problem in the respect that China appears to have an integrated strategy, while the US does not. China’s Government, communist party, and PLA possess deep integration with it’s BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei) superplatforms. The US government is in perpetual conflict with it’s domestic FAANG+(Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, others) tech leaders. As FAANG+ are in constant conflict with each other. Think of China/BATH and US/FAANG+ akin to respective military services. China’s operate in an integrated “combined arms” fashion, while US’s are in perpetual conflict with each other. Compounding this is the spying issue. During the Cold War, the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact proxies worked hard to steal western tech, with some success. But a few chips can’t be fully exploited without the manufacturing supply chain to go with it. Stealing a semiconductor assembly line is next to impossible. Stealing atoms can be hard, stealing bits is much easier. In 1946 90% of R&D was military. In 1989 50% of R&D was military, 50% commercial In 2019 90%+ of R&D is commercial with duel use potential. The US has been focused almost exclusively for 18 years on enhancing lethality against insurgents at massive expense. Meanwhile, China has been building a global platform. Innovative Strategy > Innovative Technology And Lethality is not Strategy. One Belt, One Road description should be expanded to include One Platform, One Network. I think the US is in a different “war” than what it has been preparing to fight. Platform “warfare”. A battle between geodigital operating systems instead of the battle between ideologies as during the Cold War. The best competing value proposition wins, and the US is not offering a strong value prop at the moment. The Aus has been focused on Clausewitz when it should have been focused on Metcalfe and Zipf. Just a political “scientist” and veteran who knows just enough about computers to be dangerous to myself and others within the blast radius.
- spacecity1971 7y agoPlatform warfare indeed, and this is completely overlooked as a concept. Bratton (2015) described this new geopolitical architecture in detail, and we ignore it at our peril.
- chriselles 7y agoThanks for that, I’ll check out the Bratton(2015) reference.
- mindslight 7y agoThe power structure in the US is ramping up the messages of division to retake its pre-Internet cold war grip on society's attention. "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked" The campaign to colonize Iraq and Afghanistan was too piecemeal. It produced for a while, but was ultimately too narrow in scope so it ran its course and revealed its outcome. And seemingly only a handful of companies were in on that take, rather than a widespread corporate consensus. They're pushing ISIS to continue that theater, but the topic has become tired. So they ramp up the ominous never ending sources of threats. Is China the bigger threat or is Russia the bigger threat? The Party has been framed, and there is no "if" - pick your team. It might depend on whether you'd rather wear red xor blue. It might depend on whether you prioritize acreage/driving/explosions or density/walking/restaurants. As long as you remember to do your part and assume anyone who doesn't fully agree is on the other team. Fear globally, fight locally. We are indeed being attacked. Not by the actions of China (or Russia, or etc), but by our "leaders" responding in predictable country-destroying ways out of their own self interest. One need to look no further than USG doing precisely what Bin Laden asked for an infuriating example.
- karl_schlagenfu 7y agoThe big question is, what is the US actually going to do about it? If anything...
- ycombonator 7y agoNothing, the foreign lobby is extremely powerful in DC. The kids of politicians have either got jobs with corporations indirectly funded by China or the Chinese have got so much blackmail material on these people from all the hacking they just express outrage in the form of lip service.
- omeid2 7y agoIt is just political theatrics. Every nation on earth is doing this and has been doing it since the dawn of the time. The only difference I can image with the Chinese being that they have joined the ranks of American and Russians in capabilities. > “What hangs in the balance is not just the future of the United States, but the future of the world,” Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. > U.S. complaints that China is stealing intellectual property from American companies have been at the center of President Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing. The Trump administration is planning to indict Chinese hackers and take other actions to call out China for intellectual property theft, according to people familiar with the matter. Interestingly enough, CIA has a slightly different view on the topic: "While current US policy, as recommended by Gates, does not include providing private business with government intelligence data for commercial gain, the question is apparently still open. It is a valid question and not simply a search for new missions by intelligence organizations seeking to preserve their budgets."
- A2017U1 7y agoI really don't think anyone is as capable as the Americans just on budget alone, they could ridiculously inefficient (and it's doubtful they are) yet still be operating a magnitude or two above everyone else. That's just the published budgets also.
- omeid2 7y agoThat is indeed true, but it is worth considering that the budget and reach go hand in hand. So smaller nations tend to have their proverbial eyes on a smaller number of targets, relatively.
- TheTruth1234 7y agoWho really cares? The US plundered everyone and everything to get to where it is. I'm 100% ok with the world getting some "take-back". A shame it won't be evenly distributed.
- ycombonator 7y agoThe pilfering has been happening since the 90s and the bureaucrats just woke up to it. W88 anyone ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Cox_Report_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Cox_Report_con...
- rrggrr 7y agoEveryone does it is not an argument. China is a failed global citizen polluting, repressing, and stealing it's way to regional and global power. You will not enjoy living under CCP hegemonic power...
- amriksohata 7y agoMany countries across the world don't enjoy living under the USA as the biggest power either. Dozens of countries. Also regarding pollution, Google oil usage per head and the US is the worst offender
- deogeo 7y agoLooking at consumption per capita ignores the low population and birth rate (below replacement in the US since 1970). We're told having fewer children is the best thing we can do for the environment (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...), so it's hardly fair to then assign blame with per-capita numbers.
- Leary 7y agoJust because Americans are having fewer children does not excuse them from the fact that they consume far more than other people. Americans are told constantly that global warming is false, with even President Trump claiming it is a "Chinese hoax." Furthermore, America is relatively sparsely populated not because of a moral belief that having fewer kids is better for the environment but merely because that is the stage of demographic transition it is in due to its economic development. In addition, it was very sparsely populated before the arrival of European colonizers. In addition, even if we look at the cumulative figure, America has historically been the number 1 contributor to global warming[1]. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#how-do-we-measure-or-estimate-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- amriksohata 7y agoThey still consume far more per head, so it's not a scalable solution as a model for countries to emulate. 300 million American people use more oil than 1 billion Indians per head
- jsnider3 7y agoAnyone got a link that isn't paywalled?