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People’s Daily: The United States Is Building a “Hacker Empire”

People’s Daily continues to fight back against the Mandiant report from the U.S. regarding Chinese hackers attacking U.S. companies and other entities. An article titled “The United States Is Building a ‘Hacker Empire’" accused the U.S. of being the top “hacker” in the world. The article listed the following facts as “evidence”: 

“Even the United States’ own Internet security experts also admit that activities of the U.S. ‘Cyber Army’ are not entirely in the military field. Their work may already have ‘infiltrated’ into industrial, commercial, and financial service industries, and other areas in the national economy and the people’s livelihood. The ‘Cyber Army’ is actually developing into a ‘Hacker Empire.’" 
“Based on estimates made by foreign military experts, the U.S. ‘Cyber Army’ has surpassed 100,000 people in scale which is the equivalent of eight 101 air assault divisions.” 
“The United States was the first country to develop the ‘worm’ virus, ‘logic bombs’ and other ‘cyber weapons’ and was the first to use them in combat.” 
“The U.S. military has developed as many as 2,000 types of cyber weapons; it is the world’s number one big country of ‘cyber weapons.’" 
“U.S. companies and the U.S. media jointly hype the ‘China hacker attacks’ and have the intention to attack and suppress Chinese IT companies.” 
In conclusion, the article also argued, “Cyber security rules cannot be set by Americans alone. All the countries in the world are both participants and rule setters.” 
Source: People’s Daily, March 25, 2013
http://military.people.com.cn/n/2013/0325/c1011-20899428.html
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Editorial: U.S. Uses Rogue Means against China to Pave the Way for Its Cyber Army Development

Huanqiu (Global Times), a division of People’s Daily, published an editorial accusing the U.S. of preparing for a cyber war by smearing China. The article has also been republished on the websites of People’s Daily and Xinhua. Below are excerpts from the article: 

“Keith Alexander, Commander of the U.S. Military Cyber Warfare Command, reported to Congress on Tuesday that he was building 13 cyber offense brigades and 27 squads in order to safeguard the United States and in retaliation against those countries using cyberspace to attack the U.S. This is the first time that the Obama administration has publicly acknowledged the development of Internet offensive weapons and means.” 
“This reminds everyone of the U.S.’s recent accusations that the Chinese military supports hacker attacks against the United States. A U.S. organization fabricated a report. First, the American media hyped it. Then senior U.S. officials up to Obama also got involved, putting on a show that the United States is suffering from Chinese government-backed hacker attacks. All of this is to pave the way for the United States to announce its plan to establish an offensive army using cyber warfare!” 
“This is really a manifestation of the U.S. government’s lack of moral integrity; it smears China’s reputation as part of its opening ceremony in the formation of its offensive cyber warfare forces. The action shows a lack of the most basic respect for China.” 
“China faces a choice; China should not be naive, nor does it need to be shy. We should immediately start to set up a cyber war army and build an online Great Wall to defend China’s national security. We must not be limited by the double standard that the United States is bound to have, being left far behind the advanced countries in cyber warfare techniques.” 
“The United States taught a lesson to the whole Chinese society, including the Chinese government. The United States is a country whose government and people have a high degree of institutional coordination capacity. For the U.S. national interest, non-governmental organizations and associations are highly motivated to cooperate with the government. The United States government is also very professional and skillful in manipulating social resources.” 
“The cyber warfare structure is far from fixed. It will continue to evolve in the future. China should not only make a great effort to build its cyber warfare capabilities; it should also be mindful not to weaken the research and development of advanced weapons of conventional warfare.” 
Source: Huanqiu, March 15, 2013 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2013-03/15/c_124463692.htm http://military.people.com.cn/n/2013/0315/c1011-20799794.
html http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2013-03/3734812.html
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Xinhua: China Faces Serious Threat of Cyber Attacks from U.S.

On March 19, 2013, the National Emergency Response Center (CNCERT) released a report claiming that China faces a serious threat of cyber attacks from outside of China. 

The report said that in 2012, there were about 73,000 Trojans or botnet network control servers (NCS) involved in the control of host servers in Chinese territory, a year-on-year increase of 56.9 percent; also, 1802 government websites were defaced (altered), a year-on-year increase of 21.4 percent. 
The CNCERT report also stated that, in 2012, 12,891 network control servers from the United States controlled more than 10.512 million host servers in China. In addition, it stated that 96.2 percent of the fishing sites targeting China were located offshore, up to 83.2 percent of them being from the United States. 

"The attacks on China’s Internet are mainly from the United States," reported Zhou Yonglin, director of the Operations Department of CNCERT. 

Source: Xinhua, March 19, 2013 
 http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-03/19/c_115081043.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Huanqiu: The U.S. Is Steadfastly Preparing for a Cyber War

On March 11, Li Jian, Director of the Zhiyuan Strategic and Defense Research Institute, and Li Daguang, a Professor at the  National Defense University, published an opinion article on Huanqiu (Global Times) in response to two events. The first was a remark that the U.S. President’s National Security Adviser, Tom Donilon, made that China should stop hacking U.S. computer systems and stealing commercial secrets. The second was the U.S. network security company Mandiant’s report, "APT1: to expose one of the Chinese cyber espionage units." The article said that this was by no means a simple matter. “The United States has formed a relatively complete strategic structure of "National Security Strategy – the defense strategy – the national military strategy. The U.S. has become habitual in its strategic thinking. Everything is well articulated: planning, assessment, and step-by-step moves. 

“Such a well-designed [act] by the United States serves nothing more than to achieve the following purposes: the first is to test its rival’s bottom line; the second is, through communication channels, to tie ‘the Chinese military’ to the act of ‘stealing business intelligence’ so as to hinder the Chinese military’s normal development in cyberspace; the third is to act as a deterrent, warning other countries or groups that the United States can use the same means to carry out targeted strikes.” 
“The U.S. has made itself the ‘Cyber guard’ of international Internet security. The purpose is to achieve two parallel and overlapping effects through its use of information warfare: the first is to enhance the credibility and legitimacy of all the activities of the United States’ Internet system in cyberspace; the second is to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the non ally countries’ network group, including China.” 

Source: Huanqiu, March 13, 2013 
http://opinion.huanqiu.com/opinion_world/2013-03/3727113.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

Xinhua: Hacking Attacks on China Become Increasingly Serious; Most Attacks Are from the U.S.”

On March 10, 2013, Xinhua published an article asserting that China is a victim of hacking attacks from overseas. In January and February of 2013, most of the cyber attacks against China originated in the U.S.

“According to the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center (CNCERT), the hacking attacks against China from other countries have become increasingly serious. From the samplings it took from January 1, 2013, to February 28, 2013, CNCERT found that 6,747 Trojans or botnets have hacked into 1.9 million servers in China; of those, 2,196 control servers in the United States controlled 1.287 million host computers in China. Regardless of the quantity of hackings into China’s servers or the numbers of China’s host computers being controlled, the United States was ranked as the #1 (hacker).”

Source: Xinhua, March 10, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-03/10/c_114968466.htm
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/292842.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

People’s Daily: U.S. Pushing Global “Cyberspace Arms Race”

On March 8, People’s Daily published an article written by Yang Jian, a scholar at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, in response to a U.S. security company’s report accusing the People’s Liberation Army unit in Shanghai of engaging in cyberwarfare against American corporations, organizations, and government agencies.

"The U.S. institutions, media, and politicians recently joined hands to stir up the so-called incident of China’s cyberspace attacks on the U.S., provoking distrust  in cyber security among the major powers. The logic and thinking process (behind this accusation) are worrisome. The U.S. is guiding global cyber security to a wrong conclusion."

"The U.S. strategic papers are filled with the wrong idea of seeking superpower status in cyberspace. The U.S. was the first to name allies and potential enemies in their network security strategy documents; the first to set up a network force to develop network operational plans; and the first to introduce the concept of deterrence in cyberspace. The U.S. strategy is to make enemies, cause the deterioration of relationships between the countries, and undermine the basis and atmosphere of international cooperation on cyber security. Advocating cyber warfare destroys the peaceful nature of the Internet. With other countries following the lead of the U.S., a worldwide destructive view of cyber security has developed. In the past two years, South Korea, India, NATO, Germany, Britain, Japan, and Russia have one by one established network forces or developed plans for armed forces of network security. The global arms race on cyber space is about to begin."

"The U.S. has taken a lot of trouble to look for the shadow of the Chinese military. Actually it hopes to implement outdated and harmful cyber security concepts by making an enemy and tracking the evidence. So far, only the U.S. government has initiated cyber attacks against nuclear facilities and network firewalls in countries. In the current round of the so-called China’s cyber attack incident, the U.S. again has provided a wrong presentation, which validates its revengeful actions based on the so-called ‘facts’ recognized by its own domestic organization. The U.S. already played this trick when launching the Iraqi war. The act of making up excuses for its unilateral actions, if spread in cyberspace, will bring catastrophic consequences."

Source: People’s Daily, March 8, 2013
http://military.people.com.cn/n/2013/0308/c1011-20718565.html

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

China’s Defense Ministry Claims U.S. Hackers Frequently Attack Chinese Military Websites

On February 28, 2013, China’s Defense Ministry held a press conference at which its spokesperson, Geng Yansheng,  claimed that hackers from the United States have launched frequent attacks against China’s military websites. Geng stated, “In 2012, according to the IP addresses of the display, the websites of China’s Ministry of Defense and military newspaper PLA Daily suffered attacks from the outside on an average of 14.4 million time per month. Attacks from the United States accounted for 62.9 percent of the total.” 

Geng also stated, “A number of China’s military websites have faced serious threats from cyber attacks since their inception. In recent years, the number of attacks has shown an upward trend. We noticed that the U.S. media recently reported that the United States will adopt the policy of "pre-emptive" cyber attacks, expand network warfare units on a large-scale, and establish rules for cyber warfare. The above practices are not conducive to the joint efforts of the international community to enhance Internet security. We hope that the United States will explain and clarify its position.” 

Sources: Website of China’s Defense Ministry, Xinhua 
http://www.mod.gov.cn/auth/2013-03/01/content_4434987.htm 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2013-03/01/c_124401781.htm

Briefings | | |   US-China Relations

People’s Daily: Do Not Easily Trust that the Americans “Snubbed” Abe

In the media reports about Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s visit to the U.S., people noticed that the U.S. was relatively low key when hosting Abe. Also, Obama didn’t make an open statement in public regarding the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands issue. Some interpreted the situation as the United States “snubbing” Abe. 

An article in People’s Daily reminded Chinese readers not to fall into such a trap so easily. The article said, “The three parties of China, Japan, and the United States have been carefully playing the diplomatic game around the Diaoyu Islands issue. … China asked the United States to be strict in maintaining a neutral stance. Relying on its  relationship with the U.S. as an ally, Japan tried to pull the United States into explicitly siding with them and backing Japan. Publicly, the U.S. claims to maintain a neutral position, but, behind the scenes, it has already chosen a side. All its words target China from the inside out. In other words, in its consideration of the strategic interests of the Diaoyu Islands issue, the United States gives more weight to its relations with Japan as an ally.” 
“… In its adjusted U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy, Japan ranks as an important ally. Compared to China, it is self-evident who is closer and who is farther away. To this, we Chinese people should be clear in our hearts and have a calm and strong mind. We should neither overreact to the closeness of the United States and Japan nor be fooled by the false illusion of ‘cold’ diplomatic gestures.” 
Finally, the article asserted that “China’s continuous growth and development is the fundamental guarantee of the final solution to the Diaoyu Islands issue. As China continues to grow, China will surely become more confident, calm and firm [in dealing with the issue]. While in the process of solving this problem, [China] still needs to calculate the pros and cons carefully and to take action with good reasoning, with advantage, and with restraint.” 
Source: People’s Daily, February 26, 2013 
http://world.people.com.cn/n/2013/0227/c57507-20610222.html
Briefings | | |   US-China Relations