The Washington Free Beacon’s Bill Gertz (via The Washington Times) wrote a very interesting article on how President Obama “rejected a series of touch actions against China, including counter-cyber attacks and economic sanctions, for Beijing’s aggressive campaign of cyber espionage” over two years ago. Moreover, Gertz reports that the Chinese have “issued a veiled threat” to the U.S. to quit their accusations of pervasive cyberexploitation, lest “future bilateral discussions” become unproductive.
This entire article is worth quoting, but lest I take too much, I’ll direct your attention to the rest of the article here.
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I confess that this stuff gets me a bit frisky, and I may suggest options that are either politically unwise or technically impossible; I apologize. It infuriates me to see my country die by a thousand cuts while its tormentor issues bald-faced lies. If Mr. Gertz’s sources are correct–and I have no reason to doubt them–then we may truly be lost. The Obama administration is afraid to confront China because it may “undermine U.S.-China relations.” How the hell did China not already undermine U.S.-China relations when it pursued a strategy of pervasive cyberexploitation against U.S. businesses? Why does the continued vitality of U.S.-China relations come at the expense of our nation’s economic future? We discuss response strategies for the USG in blogs and articles (including many of the same approaches that Gertz names in his article), but what good are they if no one has the nerve to use them?
This quote from Gertz’s article really got to me:
The problem is that there is no line. The administration is refusing to tell [the Chinese] what the limits are . . . There’s so much of it going on the adversaries don’t know what the line is. They do not know that there is a line they can’t cross.
Having vented my frustrations, I’ll step back a bit. Gertz’s article notes that the Obama administration rejected tough options two years ago, so thinking might have changed or may still change. I also understand it’s a tough sell to openly criticize your banker. Nevertheless, the USG has to do something beyond “raising the issue at the highest levels” just to get ignored. I favor poking holes in the Great Firewall of China combined with a regulatory regime whereby private companies can hackback under strict DOJ authorization; fat chance of either happening, but a fella can dream. We criticize private companies that engage in hackback, but with articles like this detailing the USG’s thinking, can you really blame them?
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