{"id":67648,"date":"2021-10-05T06:00:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T19:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=67648"},"modified":"2021-10-05T06:51:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T19:51:43","slug":"aspis-decades-chinas-cyberpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/aspis-decades-chinas-cyberpower\/","title":{"rendered":"ASPI\u2019s decades: China\u2019s cyberpower"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ASPI celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This series looks at ASPI\u2019s work since its creation in August 2001.<\/em><\/p>\n

The list of 14 grievances<\/a> issued last year by China\u2019s embassy in Canberra had one point aimed at ASPI.<\/p>\n

Among the sins of the Australian government, in the eyes of China, was to fund an \u2018anti-China think tank for spreading untrue reports, peddling lies around Xinjiang and so-called China infiltration aimed at manipulating public opinion against China\u2019.<\/p>\n

The aggrieved and annoyed tone was also an acknowledgement: the institute\u2019s research was having an impact. Beijing\u2019s growing cyberpower had made China a natural focus for the work of ASPI\u2019s\u00a0International Cyber Policy Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As ICPC\u2019s director Fergus Hanson noted in March 2020: \u2018The simple act of looking at what the Chinese government says it wants to do and is doing has produced some remarkable empirical research and insights<\/a> into the type of state that Australia, and the world, is dealing with.\u2019<\/p>\n

Chinese anger at what\u2019s been revealed produced unusual pushback, smear campaigns and cyber-enabled interference targeting ASPI and individual staff members. Tackling state-backed information operations and disinformation can also make you a target.<\/p>\n

In Enter the cyber dragon<\/em><\/a> in 2013, Tobias Feakin wrote about the cyber capabilities of Chinese intelligence agencies and their \u2018industrial scale\u2019 operations.<\/p>\n

While Chinese agencies were collecting vast quantities of data, Feakin said, \u2018what happens to it once it\u2019s collected is relatively unknown. We\u2019re not certain how the data is processed and analysed, and whether it ever becomes a fully usable intelligence product that\u2019s of value to Chinese policymakers\u2019.<\/p>\n

A deeper understanding of what China was doing in the cyber realm, Feakin wrote, would shape Australia\u2019s own policy settings.<\/p>\n

A 2014 report on China\u2019s cyberpower by James Lewis dismissed claims that China was waging an economic war<\/a> in cyberspace. China\u2019s behaviour, he wrote, had more to do with commercial interests than geopolitical strategy:<\/p>\n

China\u2019s cyber doctrine has three elements: control of networks and data to preserve political stability, espionage to build China\u2019s economy and technological capabilities, and disruptive acts aimed at damaging an opponent\u2019s military command and control and weapons systems, all of which are dependent on software and networks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ASPI staff and contributors to The Strategist <\/em>debated whether the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei should be allowed a role in Australia\u2019s 5G network<\/a>, tackling the broad Australia\u2013China relationship, other states\u2019 experience with Huawei, the Chinese government\u2019s approach to cyber espionage and intellectual property theft, and the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s view of state security and intelligence work.<\/p>\n

In August 2018, the government banned China\u2019s Huawei and ZTE, stating that \u2018the involvement of vendors who are likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law, may risk failure by the carrier to adequately protect a 5G network from unauthorised access or interference\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was a key moment in the dawning of an icy era in Australia\u2019s relations with China.<\/p>\n

The anger that China directed against ASPI was based on the detailed work of the cyber centre and the facts it revealed about Chinese policy and behaviour:<\/p>\n