Overview

China's emergence as a great power in the twenty-first century is strongly enabled by cyberspace. Leveraged information technology integrates Chinese firms into the global economy, modernizes infrastructure, and increases internet penetration which helps boost export-led growth. China's pursuit of informatization reconstructs industrial sectors and solidifies the transformation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army into a formidable regional power. Even as the government censors content online, China has one of the fastest growing internet populations and most of the technology is created and used by civilians. Western political discourse on cybersecurity is dominated by news of Chinese military development of cyberwarfare capabilities and cyber exploitation against foreign governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations. Western accounts, however, tell only one side of the story. Chinese leaders are also concerned with cyber insecurity, and Chinese authors frequently note that China is also a victim of foreign cyber--attacks--predominantly from the United States. China and Cybersecurity: Political, Economic, and Strategic Dimensions is a comprehensive analysis of China's cyberspace threats and policies. The contributors--Chinese specialists in cyber dynamics, experts on China, and experts on the use of information technology between China and the West--address cyberspace threats and policies, emphasizing the vantage points of China and the U.S. on cyber exploitation and the possibilities for more positive coordination with the West. The volume's multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural approach does not pretend to offer wholesale resolutions. Contributors take different stances on how problems may be analyzed and reduced, and aim to inform the international audience of how China's political, economic, and security systems shape cyber activities. The compilation provides empirical and evaluative depth on the deepening dependence on shared global information infrastructure and the growing willingness to exploit it for political or economic gain.

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9780190201265

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This book's contributors argue that China is not the electronic supervillain it is often thought to be. Despite the regime's hefty investment in digital espionage and cyberwar capabilities, its networks are less secure than those in the United States, the Chinese agencies that make cybersecurity policy are more fragmented than their U.S. counterparts, and the country suffers losses worth close to $1 billion a year because of weak policing of online theft and fraud. China conducts a great deal of industrial espionage, but its enterprises have a hard time filtering and applying the vast amount of data their hackers steal. Looking only at the Chinese side of the relationship, the book does not detail the digital threats that the United States poses to China. But Chinese thinkers believe they are significant, and given China's strategic doctrine of striking first and massively, this creates the risk that in a crisis, Beijing might launch a preemptive cyberattack.The fact that Chinese and Western experts cooperated in this pathbreaking book shows that there is a potential for working together. But there are many obstacles, including the inherent secrecy of the field. -- Foreign Affairs The US-China relationship is probably the most important in determining the future of cyberspace. Yet despite all the media reporting about Chinese hacking and cyber espionage, we lack a comprehensive picture of what it is China hopes to accomplish in cyberspace and how it copes with its own vulnerability. This is an extremely useful study not only because it brings international relations, intelligence, military, computer science, and China experts together, but also is one of the rare works that includes the contributions of Chinese academics, analysts, and practioners. This book should be read by all who want a greater understanding of China's cybersecurity situation. -- Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program, Council on Foreign Relations

The US-China relationship is probably the most important in determining the future of cyberspace. Yet despite all the media reporting about Chinese hacking and cyber espionage, we lack a comprehensive picture of what it is China hopes to accomplish in cyberspace and how it copes with its own vulnerability. This is an extremely useful study not only because it brings international relations, intelligence, military, computer science, and China experts together, but also is one of the rare works that includes the contributions of Chinese academics, analysts, and practioners. This book should be read by all who want a greater understanding of China's cybersecurity situation. Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program, Council on Foreign Relations

Author Information

Jon R. Lindsay's research examines the impact of technology on international security and strategy and has been published in leading academic journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, and Technology and Culture. He holds a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MS in computer science and BS in symbolic systems from Stanford University. He is an officer in the U.S. naval reserve with seventeen years of experience including assignments in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Tai Ming Cheung, director of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, is a long-time analyst of Chinese and East Asian defense and national security affairs with particular expertise on the political economy of science, technology, and innovation and their impact on national security matters. Dr. Cheung was based in Asia from the mid-1980s to 2002 covering political, economic and strategic developments in greater China. He was also a journalist and political and business risk consultant in northeast Asia. Dr. Cheung received his PhD from the War Studies Department at King's College, London University. Derek S. Reveron is a professor of national security affairs and the EMC Informationist Chair at the U.S. Naval War College. He specializes in strategy development, non-state security challenges, and U.S. defense policy. He has published nine books including U.S. Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Evolution of an Incidental Superpower (2015), Cyberspace and National Security: Threats, Opportunities, and Power in a Virtual World (2012) and Human Security in a Borderless World (2011). He received a a PhD in public policy analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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