The U.S. State Department’s International Security Advisory Board released a report on the U.S.-China relationship. The report “includes recommendations for efforts of the Department of State and, more broadly, the United States Government (USG), to manage the increasingly complex U.S.-China relationship in the coming decades.”
The report contains a classified portion addressing cyber. Here’s a few unclassified quotes regarding cyber:
The vulnerability of each side’s critical infrastructure to cyber attack and Chinese military writings stressing the utility of early cyber attacks also raise important question about the risks of escalation in a conflict.
The United States should use policy statements and bilateral dialogue at the official and unofficial level to ensure that China appreciates the risk attendant to cyber-attacks against critical U.S. infrastructure or nuclear command and control systems and that the United States will judge such attacks by their effects, not how they are produced.
The United States should work with China and the international community to develop agreed rules and norms on cyber-security issues (including effective communications channels and enhanced cooperation on standards and against non-state or third-party threats as well as prevention of theft of intellectual property). With respect to theft of intellectual property and exploitation of U.S. networks, the United States should pursue redress in international organizations and national legal systems. For deterrence to pertain in the cyber world, the United States needs better defenses and the demonstrated ability to counter cyber intrusion and to make the intruding agent pay for his actions.
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