On Feb. 8th, 2012, Adam Segal wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations on perceptions of Chinese cyber-capabilities. The article noted two recent sources (the cyber power index and the SDA rankings) that placed Chinese cyber-power near the bottom of international cyber-power rankings. Moreover, there has been a recent spate of articles in the Chinese press that express the view that "China is vulnerable." Indeed, if you take a look at the blog post right below this one, you'll see that China regards its own cybersecurity as weak. Popular perception has been that China has a strong cyber-capability; the Chinese recognized the potential for cyberwar over a decade ago, and began training hackers to carry out that vision.
However, Segal explains that the Chinese are concerned about losing control of "nodes and infrastructures", coordinating a government response amongst various bureaucratic entities, and maintaining effective defense. With respect to cyber defense, the Chinese share similar concerns with the US. Maybe they're not a cyber juggernaut?
Then again, Segal suggests that these recent articles on Chinese cyber-weaknesses might be meant to deceive and "lull the United States into a false sense of security." Segal uses a great quote from Sun Tzu: "All warfare is based on deception; when we are able to attack, we must seem unable."
You can find the CFR source article here.
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