Now that the Pentagon has directly blamed China's military for cyberattacks, we must ask the question: Why are we selling China the rope it is using to hang us?
The Pentagon's annual report to Congress, "Military and Security Developments Involving the Peoples Republic of China" is blunt. The New York Times summarizes:
"'In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,' the nearly 100-page report said.
The report, released Monday, described China's primary goal as stealing industrial technology, but said many intrusions also seemed aimed at obtaining insights into American policy makers' thinking. It warned that the same information-gathering could easily be used for 'building a picture of U.S. network defense networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis.'"
While China's government directed military-industrial complex wages cyber war against the U.S., thousands of young men and women from the People's Republic of China are enrolled in U.S. universities earning advanced degrees in computer science, so they can return to China and use the skills... for what?
Every day, multinational corporations, American in name only, are investing billions of dollars in the People's Republic of China, transferring capital, technological know-how and jobs to a country the Pentagon has now identified as an enemy state.
Microsoft chose Beijing as for its premier "fundamental research facility in the Asia Pacific region."
Cisco helped China's communist government build the cyber-surveillance system the state security services use to identify dissidents for liquidation.
General Electric gives its Chinese government business partner the pinnacle of American know-how -- advanced aircraft guidance, navigation, and communications technology coveted by the Chinese military.
(To digress for a moment, this wouldn't be the first time GE played both sides in a global conflict. They were convicted for collaborating with Nazi arms-maker Krupp to divvy up the world market in crucial war materiel in the run-up to World War II.)
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration tells everyone who will listen about its "pivot to Asia." Ostensibly, the U.S. military will defend the Pacific from a China whose military capabilities are enabled by capital investments from U.S.-headquartered multinational corporations. In fact, the Seventh Fleet will be defending the Asia-Pacific "global supply chains" that allow multinationals to outsource American jobs to low-wage socialist and semi-socialist countries.
Let's get real.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs committee, Greg Autry, chief economist for American Jobs Alliance and co-author of Death by China, offered practical steps to counter China's cyber-assaults. Here are a few of them:
- "Return Costs to Multinational Corps: It is time to stop rewarding American corporations for transferring capital, technology and jobs to an enemy state by modifying our corporate tax system to favor American based manufacturing.
- Stop Conflicts of Interest: Halt the flow of US officials to and from engagement in business with China. Encourage the Senate to make the investigation of Chinese business dealings a priority in confirmation hearings for officials at State, Treasury, and Commerce.
- Stop Educating Our Adversaries in Military Technology: Ban the admission of computer science student to the U.S. from nations whose militaries engage in cyber attacks against America and her allies. We are educating a massive pool of Chinese talent in our computer science and engineering schools, where they displace tens of thousand of American citizens and allies.
- Encourage U.S. Education in Computer Science: Direct the majority of student aid to STEM majors and specifically graduate degrees in computer science and engineering.
- Protect and Reclaim The Internet: The Internet is an invention of the American government funded by U.S. taxpayers. The U.S. government and the U.S. armed forces are reasonably entitled to demand special privileges in its use. Any attempt to transfer further administrative oversight of the Internet to international regulatory bodies must be most strongly opposed. Any opportunity to regain U.S. control of the Internet would be in the interest of all people, most notably the citizens of China. Specifically ICANN and control of the DNS root must remain in the U.S. Root servers currently in the U.S. must remain there. The location of anycast servers should be restricted to friendly nations.
- Technology Sanctions: The import of any Chinese computer and telecom networking hardware or software into the U.S. should be restricted. Specifically: Huawei, a technology firm founded by a Chinese military officer and routinely implicated in intelligence work.
- Recover Costs of Defense from China: An import tariff equal to America's cyber defense costs should be attached to Chinese imports. (A similar tariff should be assessed for our expense of missile defense and the "Asian Pivot" costs.)"
In the coming weeks, we will be hearing more about the "pivot to Asia" and how the administration's proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a crucial component of the strategy. In fact, TPP is nothing neither more nor less than the ultimate outsourcing agreement that will render accountable government null and void. (More on TPP to come.)
We don't need to pivot to Asia.
We need to pivot to America and tell the multinational chieftains to stop selling China the rope it's using to hang us.