[Epoch Times July 23, 2021]Two incidents related to Sino-US relations occurred from July 19 to July 22. Reading along and backwards according to the chronological order of news releases will interpret two judgments about new trends in US-China relations. First, Biden protested the pressure, the CCP gave in, and the United States smoothly arranged for the Deputy Secretary of State to visit China; Second, although Biden protested China’s cyber espionage activities, he might agree to make some concessions, and the CCP therefore agreed to receive senior American diplomats. Which is true depends on how the reader understands it.
1. The latest interaction between the U.S. and China is confusing
In recent days, the latest interaction between the United States and China has revealed a series of trends. On July 19, major Western countries unanimously condemned Beijing’s cyber espionage activities. This is the first time that the CCP’s cyber espionage activities have been publicly condemned by the international community. On July 21, both the United States and China announced at the same time that US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman would visit China; however, just a few days ago, the CCP deliberately made things difficult for this visit and almost cancelled the visit.
On July 19, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, NATO, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia each issued a notice urging Beijing to take immediate and responsible actions to stop cyber hacking. Although the various parties have used different terms, this is the first time that major Western countries have jointly condemned the CCP’s cyber “malicious activities” on a large scale.
As is generally understood, this condemnation action will irritate the CCP and further deteriorate the CCP’s relations with Western countries, especially the United States. But the actual situation is just the opposite. The CCP originally set up obstacles to prevent US Deputy Secretary of State Sherman from visiting China. After Western countries condemned Beijing’s cyber espionage operations, Beijing instead gave the green light for US Deputy Secretary of State Sherman’s visit to China. It seems that the United States The pressure worked.
How should we understand the logic of actions of the United States and China? Did Biden work with other Western countries to condemn the CCP’s cyber espionage activities, forcing the CCP to make concessions, making the US Deputy Secretary of State Sherman’s visit to China smoothly, and the CCP will be more behaving from then on? If you follow the chronological order of the above two news items, it seems that you can reason in this way. However, if the chronological sequence of these two pieces of news is interpreted in reverse, first looking at the successful visit of high-ranking US diplomats to China, and then looking at the condemnation actions of the United States, the opposite judgment can be drawn. This latter judgment is that the CCP does not actually care about the US condemnation of Beijing’s cyber espionage activities, but is trying to seek the substantive benefits that the Biden administration may give, and therefore arranged this visit; in other words, the US condemnation is only a superficial article. And it is more concerned about improving US-China relations, and Beijing knows this well.
Second, the difference between US-China espionage activities
When communist countries and western countries are in a state of cold war, both sides will adopt a series of military espionage activities, the purpose is to obtain the military intelligence of each other, and obtain the initiative during the cold war; even if each other has not yet entered the state of cold war, the two sides have a high degree of distrust and potential hostility , It will also lead to active military espionage activities. Such military espionage activities are not surprising in themselves and will never end until the Communist regime collapses. Whether it is a communist country or a Western country, it is regarded as an inevitable state.
However, if the communist countries’ espionage activities against Western countries extend to large-scale economic and technological espionage activities, that is, espionage activities are extended to civilian use, the nature of red espionage activities will change. Economic espionage activities are mainly one-way, because only communist countries try to steal technical secrets from Western countries, while Western countries basically do not use espionage methods to obtain the technology of communist countries. After all, the existing technologies in communist countries are often already in Western countries. Technical copy or imitation. If the communist countries’ economic and technological espionage activities against Western countries become widespread, this indicates that the red powers are fighting economic wars against Western countries, especially the United States, in an attempt to weaken and destroy the economic foundations of Western countries and create a military threat to the United States. condition.
Western intelligence agencies sometimes emphasize the above-mentioned differences to show that the economic espionage activities of the communist countries have crossed the line. However, the CCP usually deliberately pretends to be confused. In its internal and external propaganda, it deliberately confuses the difference between military espionage and economic espionage. This time the Western countries condemned Beijing’s cyber espionage activities, mainly referring to the CCP’s large-scale economic and technological espionage activities through the Internet; Beijing absolutely refuses to answer the facts and evidence in this regard, and instead uses savage methods to accuse Western countries of some Spy activities (ie military espionage), each other.
This is how Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the West’s accusations of CCP’s cyber espionage activities. In fact, it has always done so. The crux of the West’s accusation of the CCP’s cyber espionage is that the CCP deliberately used economic and technological espionage activities to undermine the US economy. In peacetime, this kind of economic espionage against the United States is an organized criminal crime of the red power; in the cold war state, this is actually a quasi-war behavior. Of course, Beijing knows this very well. It has been doing this and will continue to do it in the future, but it just refuses to admit it.
3. How should the Beijing authorities deal with cyber espionage activities that undermine the US economy?
The US cyber espionage activities against the CCP are actually part of the planned and premeditated long-term activities of the Beijing authorities to disrupt the US economy. When condemning Beijing’s cyber espionage activities this time, Western countries all mentioned that China launched an attack on Microsoft’s exchange server in March this year. While the U.S. and Western allies condemned the use of cyber espionage by the Beijing authorities, the U.S. judicial system prosecuted four Chinese hackers on July 19, of which three were “staff of the Ministry of National Security of China” who were a professional network affiliated to the Chinese Communist government. Spies, from 2011 to 2018, infiltrated the network systems of American companies, universities, and governments to steal information and technology; they not only stole industrial secrets, but also engaged in online extortion, mining hijacking, property theft and other activities, and even sent Private companies in the United States demand ransoms of up to millions of dollars. In the past, American intelligence experts usually blamed Russian hackers for such actions, but this time they pointed the finger at the CCP.
“The Wall Street Journal” reported on July 20 that the reporter asked Biden what is the difference between hacking from China and Russia. Biden said: “My understanding is that the Chinese government, like the Russian government, did not do it personally. This is to protect those who are doing it, and may even facilitate the actions of these people.” The cyber espionage activities of the Chinese authorities are really not the tasks of the Chinese authorities, but the authorities’ tasks. Are the individual actions of these criminals just “asylum” by the CCP? In a word, is the CCP’s cyber espionage activities a criminal act by individuals or an organized criminal crime by the CCP authorities? If it belongs to the former, the United States should require Beijing to hold criminals responsible for these cyber attacks; if it is the latter, the United States should directly pursue the political responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party.
If we ask one more question, if Beijing’s cyber espionage activities are organized criminal crimes by the authorities and the goal is to disrupt the economic activities of the United States, isn’t this the CCP launching an economic war against the United States? The United States only condemned this, so did the CCP scare it away? of course not. As early as 2013, the 61398 troops stationed in Shanghai under the Technical Reconnaissance Department of the Communist Army’s General Staff Department (General Staff Department III) were discovered against the US cyber spy activities. The aforementioned report in The Wall Street Journal mentioned that in 2015 the Chinese authorities reached an agreement with the Obama administration, which stipulates that cyber attacks that steal company records for financial gain must not be instructed or supported. However, the CCP clearly ignored this agreement completely and continued its cyber espionage activities.
It is precisely because of the international condemnation of the CCP’s cyber espionage activities, whether it comes from the United States or many Western countries, it will not produce any effect. It is also because the CCP has signed an agreement to stop economic cyber espionage activities and then “shred” the agreement. Therefore, after Western countries condemned the CCP’s cyber espionage activities, Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington think tank, told The Wall Street Journal that the United States did not take further punitive measures against the CCP. “Compared with the actions against malicious actors in Russia, this appears to be a double standard. We are cautious with China.”
4. Why is Biden only cautious about the CCP?
Also facing cyber espionage activities from Russia and the CCP, the Biden administration is quite resolute against Russia. According to the above report of The Wall Street Journal, the United States discovered a Russian hacking of SolarWinds in December last year. As a result, the United States took a series of punitive measures against Moscow. The CCP’s cyber espionage activities are larger in scale and longer than in Russia, and the damage to the United States is much more serious than that of Russia. In addition, the CCP has ignited the Cold War against the United States for a year and a half. There has also been a large-scale military confrontation in the surrounding areas of the South China Sea, and the United States seems to have reason to adopt more severe punishment measures against the CCP’s cyber espionage activities. However, we can see that the Biden authorities only condemned the CCP and fell down.
The Biden administration seems to care more about certain economic and political interests that it wants to protect, and these interests require the cooperation of the CCP. For example, the US climate envoy Kerry urged China to cooperate with the United States on July 21 to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This is one of the “God’s cards” of the Democratic Party of the United States, and it is related to the implementation of its “politically correct” line. There are still many companies in the United States that hope to import large quantities of Chinese goods and require the Biden administration to withdraw tariffs on these goods. In this regard, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in an interview on July 16 that the Biden administration believes that the first phase of the Sino-US trade agreement signed by President Trump and China has failed to resolve the most pressing dispute between the two countries. , The tariffs on China that are still being imposed have harmed the interests of American consumers.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the Biden administration must request the CCP to cooperate; and canceling or reducing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods is the CCP’s current dream. It can also be said that the CCP is trying to bring Sino-US relations back to the Obama track. , China’s short-term goal of overturning Trump’s sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore, the CCP responded very keenly and positively to the “trial balloon” released by the U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen to cancel U.S. tariffs. Chinese domestic media immediately reported extensively, indicating that the United States was about to make major concessions to the CCP. As for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the CCP has put on a stand and stated that the United States should “create favorable conditions” for coordination and cooperation in important areas. The so-called “important areas” of the CCP are nothing more than keeping China’s exports in a large and long-term surplus, allowing Chinese companies to continue to collect money on Wall Street without being audited. The CCP’s request for the United States to “create favorable conditions” for cooperation is obviously asking Deng made major concessions before talking about reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Such US-China interaction seems to be tilting the balance in favor of the CCP. Of course, the United States has some other considerations. According to a report by the Voice of America on July 22, the U.S. State Department stated on July 21 that the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Sherman will show Beijing’s negative impact during his upcoming trip to China. What responsibility and healthy competition can look like, and the United States wants to ensure that there is a “guardrail” in the complex and challenging relationship between the two countries to prevent competition from turning into conflict.
Only a few days have passed since the second interview with the US and Chinese seniors. We may as well wait and see what kind of results the two sides can negotiate.
The Epoch Times
Editor in charge: Zhu Ying
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