I found Terry Thompson’s piece at RealClearDefense on “how Congress can end China’s theft of U. S. military secrets” terribly myopic:
American innovation is a significant factor in what makes us the envy of the world. But we are becoming increasingly vulnerable to losing that advantage. Our enemies are finding they can steal our technology without creating their own. And, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear in a recent speech, no enemy tries to steal our technology more than China. The communist state has a long record of intellectual property theft against the American government and American companies. According to Pompeo, its predatory actions force the FBI to open an IP theft-related case once every 10 hours.
But Congress is considering legislation to counter this threat. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) recently proposed amendments to the NASA Authorization Act, which passed the Senate Commerce Committee, to protect American space technology. The amendments would order the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review NASA contractors for any possible Chinese ties and require the NASA administrator to review any possible Chinese involvement when awarding contracts. With these safeguards, our most sensitive technology would be much less vulnerable to the claws of Chinese intelligence.
There are at least four different ways that China has stolen U. S. military secrets:
- Forcing U. S. military aircraft down and stealing their technology.
- Hacking. Just about every hour of every day there are attempted and many successful Chinese hacks of federal, state, local government and private corporate networks.
- Chinese nationals employed by U. S. military contractors engaging in espionage.
- Chinese nationals employed by subcontractors engaged in espionage. Just to cite a handful of cases Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM all employ Chinese H1-B visa holders through agencies. Technologies provided by those companies are used by practically all government agencies.
The amendment proposed only addresses part of one of those approaches and a tiny one at that. We will never prevent theft of military secrets by the Chinese.
Plus Chinese students encouraged to forge networks and social relationships they can exploit later to the advantage of the CCP.
As it currently exists the Han Empire is essentially a robber kingdom that prefers plunder to ‘honest’ trade. Why encourage R & D when you can steal the fruits of others’ labor with impunity? We need to cut all ties to the Empire until it honors trade agreements. And I mean ‘Honors’ as opposed to ‘start honoring’ or ‘promise to honor’. The Han regime so far has been able to avoid doing that by dispensing stolen largesse far and wide to buy allies and defenders.
Curing their piratical attitude towards other nations will involve a massive cultural shift in their thinking because currently they cannot grasp the possibility of mutually beneficial ‘win-win’ outcomes due to the predatory nature of their outlook.
This is a worldview that was once dominant on the planet; all the famous seafaring peoples of yore (Greeks, Phoenicians, Norse are good examples) were thieves first. So was every migratory barbarian horde. Theft being easy to perform as compared to the hard work of manufacture and cultivation is always preferable to trade as long as it’s cost-effective to the plunderers; once the victims are able to render an effective defense that makes predation no longer worthwhile, that is when they start turning to trade. Unfortunately that process can take centuries.
An easy way to predict Chinese policy is to understand that if does not benefit China, it is not done. Period. The only way to change that is going to be by force, either military or economic.
And the theft of human labor through slavery.
Do we remember the effective non official boycott of apartheid South Africa by major corporations?
Why is China’s behavior acceptable and apartheid abhorrent ?
Are people with black skin worth more than yellow?
Perhaps they are worth more in woke coin.
Coin is one reason but to American white progressives paternalism towards blacks is normal and acceptable behavior while towards the Chinese they have a sort of inexplicable tolerance. I believe it’s based in romanticism. Some say it’s “oikophobia”—the opposite of xenophobia, fear of the close. Bad behavior by white South Africans is unacceptable because they’re putatively Europeans; bad behavior by the Chinese is acceptable because they aren’t.
They’re irrational.
The Chinese authorities are completely rational. What they’re doing has worked for almost 50 years. It will continue to work. We are irrational.