Via The Hill’s Julian Pecquet:
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will warn Chinese leaders next week that the country’s cyber spying is endangering the country’s growing trade relationship with the United States, the Obama administration said.
I’ll give credit where credit is due: the Obama administration is going ham on confronting China over its pervasive cyberexploitation. Granted, it’s unlikely to work, and granted, we have no idea what is actually being said. Much like he quietly told Dmitry Medvedev to stop pushing him on the missile defense shields until he is reelected, President Obama could make a public fuss about cyberexploitation, but secretly acknowledge our banker is not expected to make a change. This Washington Times article seems to suggest the Obama administration won’t take the necessary steps when the rubber meets the road. Who knows. However, ever since the Mandiant report has come out, the Obama administration has seemingly heeded the numerous calls to confront China. Better late than never, I suppose.
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Jeffrey Carr wrote an interesting article for Slate on how the American response to Chinese cyberespionage is going to backfire. Mr. Carr is a noted contrarian on Mandiant’s claim that it attributed a number of cyber intrusions back to the PLA, an argument he makes again in this article. I’m not a huge fan of that argument, but I was drawn to this point:
The anti-China sentiment on the Hill, in the Pentagon, and at the White House clashes with the pro-China business policies of major U.S. companies, including those with very active in-house security operation centers. Beijing surely knows about this disconnect—and that makes the U.S. strategy look weak or inferior.
Who needs hackers when American businesses willingly transfer IP to Chinese entities in exchange for access to Chinese markets?
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