The U.S. faces two escalating threats of war with China. First, the threat of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Second, the threat of a Chinese attack on the Philippines (a far more imminent concern than commonly understood).
But if war does come, Beijing senses that it has at least one major advantage. Namely, that Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party will need to pay little heed to the views of the Chinese people over the war. At the same time, Beijing will hope to manipulate U.S. public opinion in favor of a rapid cessation of hostilities on terms favorable to China. We're learning more and more about one way that Beijing would hope to pressure Americans to call for an early end to any war. And that's by China's strangling of key utility systems that Americans rely upon for their access to power, clean water, and communications.
As reported this week, hackers affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army have compromised about two dozen critical infrastructure entities this year. The probing is part of a larger Chinese strategy to create division and panic in the United States should China take military action in Taiwan or the Philippines. The infrastructure targeted includes water utilities, ports, and oil pipelines.
These intrusions are the work of a Chinese government unit that cyberthreat analysts have labeled "Volt Typhoon." As Microsoft explained this spring, this particular group has targeted entities that "span the communications, manufacturing, utility, transportation, construction, maritime, government, information technology, and education sectors." Volt Typhoon's focus on U.S. Pacific-facing interests is notable. Guam, home to major U.S. military bases that would be crucial to any war effort, has been targeted alongside Hawaii, for example.
Volt Typhoon underlines Xi Jinping's evident preparation for cyberattacks targeting not just the U.S. military, but also the U.S. civilian population. This likely reflects the doctrinal Chinese military interest in creatively targeting an enemy's varied centers of gravity. If Americans can be made to believe that a far-away war is bringing too heavy costs at home, they may demand peace from their elected leaders. China is thus likely to employ cyberattacks against U.S. civilian interests in the earliest stages of any conflict. Alongside its ideological hatred for uncertainty, its fears over the geopolitical fallout of any war would motivate the Chinese Communist Party to secure victory as quickly as possible. As Sun Tzu put it, "In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns."
President Joe Biden has a responsibility to respond to this strategic threat. The president must make clear that the U.S. will respond in kind to any such attack.
Biden has not done so thus far. Indeed, Biden's deterrent response to these forms of attacks has been far from inspiring. Take the 2021 Colonial Pipeline hack, which crippled energy supplies on the U.S. East Coast. The Biden administration knew that the attack was carried out by Russian cybercriminals associated with the REvil organization. It knows that these individuals pay protection money to the Russian FSB and agree to avoid Russian-aligned targets. But instead of striking the group's servers and those of the FSB units known to supervise the group, Biden simply requested that the Russians take greater law enforcement action against it. Predictably, Russia's action has been only halfhearted and occasional at best. China may have learned a lesson from this timidity.
That must change. The president should state clearly that the U.S. will wreak havoc on China's utilities networks in the event that Chinese cyber actors, whether identified as state-controlled or otherwise, take offensive action against U.S. utilities networks. The focus should rest on establishing Beijing's understanding of America's resolved strategic overmatch in the cyber domain. Like Moscow, Beijing is aware that the U.S. National Security Agency has means of persistent command and control access to its most sensitive and valuable utility networks. Biden needs to communicate to Beijing that these networks will be targeted with speed and aggression if China attempts to do the same against America.
If China disrupts clean water or power supplies to Hawaii, then Hainan island, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong will also lose power and clean water. If the Port of Los Angeles is disrupted, the ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen will also cease functioning. The abiding interest is that of deterrence: encouraging Beijing to avoid actions that will ultimately cause far greater harm to its own interests.
But the risk is clear. If Biden even indirectly facilitates Xi's belief that he can get away with targeting U.S. utilities, he risks Xi deciding to roll those dice the day that war comes.
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