The title above comes from William J. Holstein’s October 15, 2019 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Mr. Holstein is the author of “The New Art Of War: China’s Deep Strategy Inside The United States.”
China has been stealing U.S. intellectual property and sensitive research and development schemata — especially with respect to military weapons and other sensitive technology — for decades. Over a decade ago when I was working, China’s behavior was referred to as ‘The Great Steal Ahead.’ It was said you could get your Ph.D. in engineering six months early in China, if you stole a piece of intellectual property that had not already been stolen. Several years ago, China began to build a cloud full of all this purloined material — enabling those in China to leap ahead in their various endeavors — by utilizing the stolen material instead of having to spend precious time and resources on research and development.
This pattern of theft has only intensified over the years, as the consequences of Beijing’s actions have been practically non-existent until POTUS Trump imposed trade tariffs in an attempt to curb China’s behavior. Mr. Holstein writes that FBI Director Christopher Wray “said in July, that the FBI had 1,000 active investigations into attempted Intellectual property theft in America — mostly involving China.”
China’s Ministry of State Security [the same entity that briefly ‘hosted’ Edward Snowden in Hong Kong], “China’s sprawling espionage agency, is at the center of many of these efforts,” Mr. Holstein wrote. “The People’s Liberation Army coordinates with the ministry to steal U.S. military technology,” he added. “In addition to government forces, ostensibly, private Chinese companies [Huawei] are increasingly bent to party whims under President Xi Jinping.”
Mr. Holstein correctly asserts that “Beijing’s tech theft is a danger to every American and every opponent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The line between commercial and military technology is often blurry — artificial intelligence, for instance, has many commercial and military uses. The CCP has also directly gone after military secrets, as the Navy Secretary in March said his branch and its commercial partners are under ‘cyber-siege’ by China.” Mr. Holstein then goes on to cite individual examples of China’s theft, or great steal ahead strategy, including the theft of: “solid-state-drive computer technology from a Silicon Valley start-up, CNEX Labs; penetrating the systems of a company that makes monolithic microwave integrated circuits — devices that provide the data for enhanced target acquisitions in weapons systems used by the USAF, Navy and DARPA; stealing 300,000 Tesla files related to the company’s autopilot system; and perhaps the granddaddy of all” Mr. Holstein wrote, “recent incidents took place in December 2018, when the Justice Department and FBI disclosed that they had broken up a roughly four-year operation by a hacking group known as APTIO in Tianjin, China, which worked with the Ministry of State Security. APTIO was able to penetrate America’s cloud computing systems using malware that fooled intrusion detection systems. It was able to ‘hop’ onto the systems of companies that relied on cloud computing firms, reportedly including IBM, to protect their data. One of the targets was the U.S. Navy. APTIO stole the names and personal details of 100,000 naval personnel; and, also stole ship maintenance information, which could have practical use in any naval showdown in the Pacific,” Mr. Holstein wrote. And the personal information of course can be used for espionage purposes. Other notable thefts that Mr. Holstein did not mention include: the designs for the F-22 and F-35, our most advanced military transport plane — the C-17, Naval anti-ship missile technology, latest submarine design and stealth technology, as well as military drone technology related to the MQ-9 Reaper, and I suspect many more — that remain classified. China’s most intense focus lately has been in the artificial intelligence, big data mining and machine learning, super computing, as well as hypersonic missiles, and denial and deception — fake news and videos, and the race to go invisible. FYI, Silicon Valley has been referred to by some as China’s “Den of Spies.”
Mr. Holstein argues, as many others have, that “the U.S. needs a comprehensive strategy to combat this espionage. It will require a Manhattan Project-like intensity and focus to harden America’s information-technology systems; and will take years and cost billions of dollars,” he wrote.
It is hard to envision how this ends well. China does not want to just catch the U.S. technologically; but, surpass us to become the next world superpower. That outcome would be terrible for the entire world. Beijing has a Blitzkrieg IP Theft Technology Strategy that from their perspective had paid off handsomely — why would they want to change it. The answer is — they aren’t likely to. RCP, fortunascorner.com
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