Friday 8 May 2009
Alarm Bells Sounded in Washington Over China’s Rising “Soft Power”
“Cyberspies” breaking into US government computers kicked off alarm bells in Washington last week at a hearing by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission entitled “China’s Propaganda and Influence Operations, Its Intelligence Activities that Target the United States, and the Resulting Impacts on U.S. National Security.”
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Alarm Bells Sounded in Washington Over China’s Rising “Soft Power”
Thomas Wilkins
7 May 2009
“Cyberspies” breaking into US government computers kicked off alarm bells in Washington last week at a hearing by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission entitled “China’s Propaganda and Influence Operations, Its Intelligence Activities that Target the United States, and the Resulting Impacts on U.S. National Security.”
China was reportedly considered the base from which hackers spies broke into Pentagon computers, housing its $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project. This next generation strike aircraft weapon system will offer multiple uses to the Navy, Air Force, Marines and US allies. However, the inconclusive accusation was based on unidentified government officials, not subject to corroboration.
“While public identification of the hackers in these instances has not been conclusive, the electronic trails in both instances have reportedly led back to China, “ said Commissioner Peter Brookes, a former, George W. Bush administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs. He cited “recent revelations of alleged Chinese espionage within the United States” which exported technical data to China related to systems components for space launch vehicles.
Commissioner Brookes balanced his remarks by agreeing that “it is the right of every government to seek to peacefully promote its views to international audiences, it is also prudent to examine the effects that such increased propaganda efforts could have on U.S.-China relations.”
Commissioner William Reinsch, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration and now a Commissioner of this body, described the hearings purposed “to examine the Chinese government’s propaganda directed at foreign audiences, its alleged efforts to exert influence over U.S. institutions and U.S. public opinion, and its espionage and cyber-espionage activities directed against the United States.”
The hearing heard ten experts from academia, a retired Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis and a private firm.
“During the course of 2007, the Chinese government began an explicit focus on “Soft Power’ as a dimension of foreign policy,” said Dr. Nicholas Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. He described “Soft Power” as enhancing Chinese culture “through methods including management of the internet and investment in cultural institutions at home.” Dr. Cull said that the primary audience is global, as expressed by Shanghai correspondent David Barboza that “China aims to create a global news empire.”
However, Dr. Cull’s conclusion said “China is doing nothing wrong in its public diplomacy drive. It is wise from China’s point of view. The wrong would be for the west to ignore it. The appropriate response of the west should be to meet the overtures for exchanges in the spirit in which they are intended and to accept opportunities to know china better and facilitate China knows more the west.”
“I believe that the United States needs to expand its public diplomacy because that is the only way to effectively conduct foreign policy in the twenty first century. Anything that this committee can do to encourage the rebuilding of American public diplomacy would be a wise investment in this country’s future and the future of the ideals on which it is built,” concluded Dr. Cull.
“I believe it’s time for this country to practice a stricter reciprocity in dealing with the PRC, “said retired Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I.C. Smith. “We, as a country, make it relatively easy for the Chinese. We allow them to purchase our companies, to send literally thousands of their students to study in this country in all disciplines, delegations have almost free rein in traveling about the country and politically, we haven’t shown any political will to punish the Chinese for their frequent violations and activities, i.e. the Hainan Island incident, undervaluation of their currency, the harassment of our ships in international waters, the sudden cancellation of ship visits to Hong Kong, etc. ,” he concluded.
“Life blood (shengmingxian)” describes the Chinese government’s attitude towards its propaganda work, said Professor Anne-Marie Brady of the School of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. She characterized China’s officials working on externally directed activities as “extremely critical of what they call the ‘Western media’s ideological assault on the rest of the world.” However, she described current activities as toned down from earlier attempts to push its political ideology onto others. However, if the activities are directly to Overseas Chinese or Taiwanese, she described these activities as “offensive in nature, with strategic goals in mind such as neutralizing support for anti-CCP forces.”
Xinhua News Service expects to increase its overseas bureaus from 100 to 186 and to spend 45 billion yuan to expand its foreign language news coverage. This program would be designed “from the viewpoint of Beijing.” The Global Times, a party organ People’s Daily-affiliated tabloid, expects to have an English language edition. And CCTV-9 is expected to have Arabic and Russian language services. Professor Brady concluded that these activities “could well have a significant impact in strengthening China’s soft power internationally.
“China’s efforts to influence U.S. academics, journalist, think tank personnel and other shapers of public opinion are part of its overall aims in the world,” said Dr. Ross Terrill, historian and Research Associate with Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Asian Studies.
When asked by the Commission “what is the extent of computer hacking and computer network exploitation (CNE) that originates in china and is directed against the systems of the U.S. government and/or U.S. firms, Mr. Kevin Coleman, Senior fellow at Technolytics said “The accurate response to this question is WE DON’T REALLY KNOW!”
Even though China has large foreign currency exchange reserves, and could influence decision makers in Washington and Wall Street, “in fact, however to date China has been very cautious in attempting to exercise this potential influence,” said Eric Anderson, Senior Policy Analyst of New Ideas Fund.
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