
China’s Spying Poses Rising Threat to U.S. - Jerry2
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-spying-poses-rising-threat-to-u-s-11556359201
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omeid2
It is just political theatrics. Every nation on earth is doing this and has
been doing it since the dawn of the time. The only difference I can image with
the Chinese being that they have joined the ranks of American and Russians in
capabilities.

> “What hangs in the balance is not just the future of the United States, but
> the future of the world,” Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s
> counterintelligence division, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

> U.S. complaints that China is stealing intellectual property from American
> companies have been at the center of President Donald Trump’s trade war with
> Beijing. The Trump administration is planning to indict Chinese hackers and
> take other actions to call out China for intellectual property theft,
> according to people familiar with the matter.

Interestingly enough, CIA has a slightly different view on the topic: "While
current US policy, as recommended by Gates, does not include providing private
business with government intelligence data for commercial gain, the question
is apparently still open. It is a valid question and not simply a search for
new missions by intelligence organizations seeking to preserve their budgets."

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A2017U1
I really don't think anyone is as capable as the Americans just on budget
alone, they could ridiculously inefficient (and it's doubtful they are) yet
still be operating a magnitude or two above everyone else.

That's just the published budgets also.

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omeid2
That is indeed true, but it is worth considering that the budget and reach go
hand in hand. So smaller nations tend to have their proverbial eyes on a
smaller number of targets, relatively.

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rrggrr
Everyone does it is not an argument. China is a failed global citizen
polluting, repressing, and stealing it's way to regional and global power. You
will not enjoy living under CCP hegemonic power...

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amriksohata
Many countries across the world don't enjoy living under the USA as the
biggest power either. Dozens of countries. Also regarding pollution, Google
oil usage per head and the US is the worst offender

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deogeo
Looking at consumption per capita ignores the low population and birth rate
(below replacement in the US since 1970). We're told having fewer children is
the best thing we can do for the environment
([https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-
to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-
climate-change-have-fewer-children)), so it's hardly fair to then assign blame
with per-capita numbers.

~~~
amriksohata
They still consume far more per head, so it's not a scalable solution as a
model for countries to emulate. 300 million American people use more oil than
1 billion Indians per head

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deogeo
The US absolutely should reduce it's per-capita oil use/CO2 production, that
much is true. But as far as scalability, it is the _most_ scalable solution.
In 1970, US population was 205 million, and birth rate was below replacement.
If there had been 0 immigration in the intermediate time, the population would
have shrunk. Compared to current population, the total CO2 emitted would be
less than 63% of current levels - a reduction by almost _half_. This could be
applied to _any_ country, and it could scale to go as low as needed.

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ycombonator
The pilfering has been happening since the 90s and the bureaucrats just woke
up to it. W88 anyone ?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Cox_Report_con...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Cox_Report_controversy)

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aszantu
I wonder why there is such a push against china now... This post rising to the
top like this without points and discussions...

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chriselles
I think it’s because it is a legitimate problem.

A problem in the respect that China appears to have an integrated strategy,
while the US does not.

China’s Government, communist party, and PLA possess deep integration with
it’s BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei) superplatforms.

The US government is in perpetual conflict with it’s domestic FAANG+(Facebook,
Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, others) tech leaders. As FAANG+ are in
constant conflict with each other.

Think of China/BATH and US/FAANG+ akin to respective military services.

China’s operate in an integrated “combined arms” fashion, while US’s are in
perpetual conflict with each other.

Compounding this is the spying issue.

During the Cold War, the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact proxies worked hard to
steal western tech, with some success.

But a few chips can’t be fully exploited without the manufacturing supply
chain to go with it. Stealing a semiconductor assembly line is next to
impossible.

Stealing atoms can be hard, stealing bits is much easier.

In 1946 90% of R&D was military. In 1989 50% of R&D was military, 50%
commercial In 2019 90%+ of R&D is commercial with duel use potential.

The US has been focused almost exclusively for 18 years on enhancing lethality
against insurgents at massive expense.

Meanwhile, China has been building a global platform.

Innovative Strategy > Innovative Technology

And Lethality is not Strategy.

One Belt, One Road description should be expanded to include One Platform, One
Network.

I think the US is in a different “war” than what it has been preparing to
fight.

Platform “warfare”.

A battle between geodigital operating systems instead of the battle between
ideologies as during the Cold War.

The best competing value proposition wins, and the US is not offering a strong
value prop at the moment.

The Aus has been focused on Clausewitz when it should have been focused on
Metcalfe and Zipf.

Just a political “scientist” and veteran who knows just enough about computers
to be dangerous to myself and others within the blast radius.

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spacecity1971
Platform warfare indeed, and this is completely overlooked as a concept.
Bratton (2015) described this new geopolitical architecture in detail, and we
ignore it at our peril.

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chriselles
Thanks for that, I’ll check out the Bratton(2015) reference.

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karl_schlagenfu
The big question is, what is the US actually going to do about it? If
anything...

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ycombonator
Nothing, the foreign lobby is extremely powerful in DC. The kids of
politicians have either got jobs with corporations indirectly funded by China
or the Chinese have got so much blackmail material on these people from all
the hacking they just express outrage in the form of lip service.

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jsnider3
Anyone got a link that isn't paywalled?

