Andrew Mertha, associate professor of government at Cornell University, discusses why he expects cyber espionage and hacking from China to increase in the near future.
Mertha says:
“The Chinese government is technically correct when it says that it does not conduct cyber-espionage against the United States, as such activity appears to be within the domain of the Chinese military – which reports to the Chinese Communist Party, not the government.
“It does appear that China’s military is getting bolder in undertaking such activity with only little protest from Washington or Beijing. Why might Beijing protest? These actions suggest that pockets of the Chinese military are using these instances as a means to prod Beijing into providing increased military spending or other resources while simultaneously testing the new leadership.
“The louder the calls from the U.S. for China to curb such activity, the greater the resistance of China’s leaders to appear to be bending under U.S. pressure. For all these reasons, I expect this type of activity to increase in the near future, as Washington and Beijing continue to walk a fine line over this issue.
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