As the New York Times reports, the U.S. government will soon publicly accuse China’s cyberintelligence services of efforts to steal U.S. coronavirus vaccine research.
Put simply, this Chinese activity is not shocking. As I noted on April 30, “Considering their operational character, China’s security services are almost certainly stealing as much research from foreign laboratories as they can.” The government is likely to accuse People’s Liberation Army cyberunits and perhaps also the Ministry of State Security directly for this thievery effort. Those cyberelements are aggressive and resourceful and will almost certainly succeed in stealing some valuable information.
But, as I say, China’s thievery shouldn’t shock anyone (except, of course, for those reliably absurd Obama administration officials who want to save China the trouble of spying and give Beijing our research directly).
The key here is that China views the race to a coronavirus vaccine very differently from the rest of the world.
After all, Beijing sees this not simply as a race for national pride earned by service of humanity, but as a unique and fleeting opportunity to strengthen its global agenda. Slowly recognizing the immense damage its coronavirus-related lies have done to China’s global reputation, Beijing is desperate to be the first to get a viable vaccine. Only that vaccine can treat the epidemic of global anger over China’s arrogant disdain it’s suffering.
But what we’re seeing from China here is also a crystallized encapsulation of how its leaders see the world. Namely, as something to take from and use for China’s unilateral interests. The Chinese Communist Party has no regard for the rights of its own citizens, let alone foreigners. Indeed, Xi Jinping likes to claim that foreign intellectual property belongs to China regardless.
Where does this leave us?
Well, with a hard truth. The U.S. government can call out China all it wants. But until China faces real consequences for what it is doing here, such as cyberretaliatory attacks that shut down its domestic censor networks online, it will keep stealing without hesitation.
