Mainland China's Cyber-Spying Raises Complex Questions

The recent revelations bythe U.S. government (via several indictments) that elements of the Mainland Chinese government are aggressively hacking into U.S.-based corporations to obtain technological secrets seem alarming. I mean, on one hand, it seems like the Chinese are actually attacking us, right? Their people, safely situated in a modest skyscraper in Shanghai, are trying to get at our people, or at least, our corporations' confidential information. It’s Them versus Us.

When I first read about this, I had the standard, American/Cold War emotional

Corporate manufacturers' loyalties
weren't much of a question when this photo
was taken during World War II at a Buffalo, NY factory.
But can a corporation be considered "American" today
 when it makes most or all of its products overseas? 

reaction. I was outraged. How dare they use their brainiacs to extract our nation’s trade secrets and technological know-how? Attacking our companies like that…hacking into their files…it’s an invasion…or at least, a virtual one.

But then the critical thinking began. I started to cool down, because this situation is much more complex than it seems, and our moral position in regards to unauthorized access to internationally-based information isn’t exactly a firmly-based one. So as this story develops, I’d like to raise some questions for further discussion:

1.   Don’t we do this all the time? Haven’t we been doing this for at least a half-decade? Really, I’m not a huge fan of Edward Snowden, and frankly, I regard him as a traitor, but that’s a subject for another blog. But even if a fraction of his exposés are true, and I doubt that it’s just a fraction – don’t we have an entire, billion-dollar agency that is dedicated to doing nothing less than recording almost every overseas batch of data, conversation, picture, etc.? Haven’t we managed to infuriate our enemies, and more importantly, our allies(i.e. Germany) with our aggressive, overseas data-mining and intrusive cyber-efforts?

2.   What is an “American Company” anyway? Major news outlets are reporting that many “U.S. Corporations” have been targeted by the Chinese government. But how do we define a corporation that’s actually on “our side”? Aren’t most, if not all of these large corporations, multinational in scope, with stockholders, funds, operational facilities and factories located in a variety of nations? Why would these corporations be particularly more loyal to our government when compared to others? Is there some kind of devotional or location test that makes a corporation “American” as opposed to, say, “Chinese”? Apple is an “American” corporation, with its headquarters in California, yet most of its materials and manufacturing derive from Chinese and South Korean material, employees and factories.

3.   Is the Internet devouring itself? Really, it’s worth considering. Over the past few decades the human race has created the greatest communications and knowledge-based network in its history; the Web has no precedent. It is a zillion things in one: it’s a post office, a library, a television, a university, a diary, a publishing house, a supermarket, a shopping mall, a bank, an atlas, a pharmacy, and on and on and on. If national militaries intend on making it into a battle zone, is it worth even keeping around in its present form? Have we created a superior form of technology whose wisdom has gone so far beyond us that, being the fools we are, we just cannot handle its inherently progressive power to bring us together? Perhaps we need to, as some kind of last good faith move, create a series of international treaties to protect it, like we do with the Law of the Sea.

4.   Where will it all end? How could the United States possibly stop China and other national and private entities from continuing with such behavior in the future? Are we going to start targeting hackers with drones like we do in places like Yemen and Pakistan? How far do we want to go with this? Would other nations be justified in doing the same? Would say, Singapore be justified in calling in a drone strike on a hacker’s house in Portland, Oregon if he was trying to break into Singaporean bank accounts? Or if such a hacker was attempting to interrupt an online, life-risking medical procedure? It’s worth asking, because using this line of thinking, it could happen.

So many questions. I don’t know where it all begins and ends. The Mainland Chinese aren’t good guys, that’s for sure. I’m not cheering for them. But whom should I cheer for? Who is “America” here, if anyone is, at all?

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