Finance Central

Associate Press published an interesting article the other week, implying that the Chinese government has been involved in snooping the networks of the American Commerce Department. Here is an excerpt from the story:

DAILY NEWS - U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers, officials and industry experts told The Associated Press.

Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez’s trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident told the AP. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation.

According to later publications, the allegation was officially denied by the Chinese authorities and was stated that this is not the way they deal with their business or political rivals. Furthermore, both FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have not yet confirmed any present investigations and had assured that no official electronic devices could be taken abroad without being routinely scrubbed. And think about that - you must be super retarded and unprofessional to leave your business laptop unattended or if someone actually decide to crack it in real, I seriously doubt that this will be the method s/he will prefer.

As a matter of fact, this is not the first time when the Chinese authorities were accused with cyber mischief. There are also many rumors stating that they have been involved with cracking into many Indian government networks as well as taking a complete control over the American electrical power systems. The bad press doesn’t stop here. China was voted recently as one of the most dangerous places for hosting domain names and if you add the extremely negative coverages, concerning the recent Tibet’s protests and the earthquake, the picture starts to get quite scary. The frequency of those accusations and the lack of any official proofs, make me believe that the China could be a real victim of deliberate defamation from the West, which is aiming to degrade the profile of the state before the beginning of the Olympic games or just to challenge its energy politic. Sure signs for this are:

  • The usage of anonymous sources
  • Negative messages - Chine is presented as a place of serious cyber crime, geo danger and political oppression
  • Nonsensical plots
  • Lack of substantial investigation results
  • Subjective points of view. In just very few commentaries, the Chinese version of the story line is actually presented.

Whatever the truth is, one thing is for sure: the tension between two of the greatest political/economical powers is getting bigger and bigger with every single day. China may be a victim of a Black PR attack or the case could be completely opposite. Don’t forget that as a communist regime the smear campaigns are one of the most useful and quite popular communication tools for dealing with the competition.

A conflict that definitely needs to be kept an eye on.