Chinese World Domination: Enhancing Their Technology

These articles are not being written as justifications for promoting a war between the U.S. and China. That would be foolishness beyond the extreme. In fact, the exact opposite is true. It is only through maintaining our competitive economic, military, and technical advantages that we can assure peace.

We need to win on the tech battlefield, too

It is critical that we recognize that we are in competition with the Chinese Communists for the hearts and minds of the peoples of the world. The Chinese know this and they are actively competing with only one objective: to win. They are only interested in cooperation that leads ultimately to winning. We need to understand that and compete with them, as if our only chance for survival is by winning.

We currently have the advantage. People who are looking for opportunity still come to America, because the U.S. is the beacon of hope to all those who are searching for a better life. If we do not compete effectively, if we capitulate to the communists, for whatever reasons, our light will be extinguished and those searching for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will have far fewer options.

The Chinese Communists recognize, full well, that they cannot win the competitive war with the U.S. until they have acquired our, and the world’s, technical knowledge. And then, they will take that technology to even greater levels; all to assure the achievement of their ultimate objective: world domination.

So, in this “war” for technical knowledge, what methods will the Chinese Communists use to achieve their objective? Will they use internationally accepted methods, or any means whatsoever? First, let’s consider their concept of right and wrong, as it relates to achieving success and/or survival. The lessons of the past have told us time and again that, essentially, anything that helps achieve their success, is right; and, anything that detracts from this objective is wrong; i.e. “all is fair in love and war.”

China is not above any activity that will enhance its technology, IHS reports, in an article of the same name, that the “Pentagon says China still using means foul and fair to gain foreign technology”:

China is continuing to leverage foreign assistance in the form of commercial joint ventures (JVs), academic exchanges and “state-sponsored espionage” to develop its domestic defense industrial and research capabilities, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has claimed.

There seems little doubt that China is also actively involved in cyber-espionage around the world. In an article in Asia Society, Jamie Metzl states that “China is one of the world’s worst state perpetrators of cyber-espionage and malicious computer hacking.” Then he dramatically supports that case with quotes from a series of government investigations and quotes from extremely influential and competent individuals, for example:

Former U.S. cyber-czar Richard Clarke asserted that “What’s going on is very large-scale Chinese industrial espionage…They’re stealing our intellectual property. They’re getting our research and development for pennies on the dollar.”

In a March 2010 testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Larry Wortzel, Commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, explained that hacking by Chinese actors works to “speed the development and fielding of weapons in China, improve technology in sectors of China’s industries while saving time and money in research and development.”

In 2007, Jonathan Evans, the Director General of the UK Security Service, MI5, stated that the Chinese “continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense.”

As one final example of China’s efforts to attain critical information concerning America’s intellectual property, I quote from The Official Google Blog:

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.

… this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted.

The Chinese are definitely equal opportunity espionage activists. AFCEA through Signal Magazine reported that “Russian officials have been irritated for years by what they view as China’s illegal reverse engineering of combat systems.”

The Russian state military import/ export agency Rosvoorouzhenie and 956E production Severnoye Design Bureau were shocked and angered when the 054A upgrade to the new People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) 054 frigate appeared in 2006. At first it appeared to have four Russian-supplied systems that had been on earlier Chinese Luyang guided missile destroyers (DDGs). In reality, the four complex systems were illegal Chinese copies never before seen …

China is not only interested in military espionage, they are also very active in spying on industry:

Industry Week reports,

Huang Kexue, federal authorities say, is a new kind of spy. For five years, Mr. Huang was a scientist at a Dow Chemical lab in Indiana, studying ways to improve insecticides. But before he was fired in 2008, Mr. Huang began sharing Dow’s secrets with Chinese researchers, …

Economic espionage charges are also pending against Jin Hanjuan, a software engineer for Motorola, who was arrested with a laptop full of company documents while boarding a plane for China, … other charges … have been filed against former engineers from General Motors and Ford who had business ties to China. And scientists at the DuPont Company and Valspar, a Minnesota paint company, recently pleaded guilty to stealing their employer’s secrets after taking jobs in China.

In two past espionage cases involving American computer companies, defendants said they saw a chance to make money and acted on their own, knowing that the information would be valuable to Chinese companies or agencies. In several cases, Chinese government agencies or scientific institutes provided money to start businesses or research to develop the ideas; that financing is what gave rise toGE the espionage charges.

In addition to espionage and promises of financial gain, China also uses its large market as a siren song that is extremely hard to resist, but can be fraught with danger. For example, GE has contracted with China to supply to the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China some of GE’s highly valuable next-generation technologies necessary for their development of a competitive airline industry. GE entered into this agreement even though it had been determined that the technology was essential to the United States’ economic future.

And GE isn’t the only U.S. technology company that the siren song of a massive market has appealed to. There are literally thousands of the world’s companies heavily invested in China; a few other examples are Apple, ATT, General Motors, Ford, Memorex, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony. All of these companies are at risk of having their technology stolen. For example:, “the team … made a startling find. Someone [Chinese software engineers] had replicated American Semiconductor‘s electrical control system software almost perfectly.”

Along the same lines, both of Michigan’s U.S. senators are now “calling for a formal investigation of Chinese trade practices related to electric vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow wrote U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on Wednesday asking for action to determine whether China is attempting “shakedowns” of American companies to turn over their technology secrets.

Today, Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin sent his own letter to Kirk and acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank.

“The Chevrolet Volt represents intellectual property developed in the United States and paid for by General Motors research and development dollars,” Levin wrote. “The U.S. government must not allow China to coerce American companies to give their technology away to foreign competitors in order to have access to their markets.”

In addition, many technology companies are moving major research facilities to China. Some of the most current examples are: Intel, Cisco, Applied Materials, and Natcore Technology. Even Warren Buffett is investing heavily in China. Is it possible that any suggestions he may have about how to improve our economy, including our relationship with China, may be influenced by his stake in China’s technology future? Just asking.

The concern for this transfer of technology, by any and all means possible, was even discussed in a report from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, “According to experts and executives interviewed for this study, the transfer of advanced US technology is the price of market access in China for US high-tech companies.”

To suggest that these activities do not involve a transfer of technology would be naïve to the extreme. In fact, there is no doubt that the Chinese see any activity that supports their ultimate objectives as moral and any activity that detracts from these goals as immoral. Any country or business striving for a mutually advantageous relationship with China needs to take this fact into account. The ultimate risk is the end of American exceptionalism and the beginning of Chinese world domination.