China’s Cyberespionage Program

There are three factors, often overlooked, that play to China’s [cyberespionage] advantage. The first is China’s phenomenally successful cyberespionage efforts, which have enabled it to dramatically shrink America’s lead in military technology over the past fifteen years. The PLA no longer needs to reverse-engineer stolen helicopters and drones, it simply downloads the design and technical specifications from whatever U.S. defense contractor’s computer network it has managed to penetrate and builds the ship or missile, weapon or radar system following the specifications of these stolen plans.

…………

It is no surprise that, as a number of commentators have pointed out, China’s latest generation of weapons, from stealth drones all the way up to strike fighters, bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. The United States spends a trillion dollars developing the F-35 Lightning II and then, before it is even fully operational, China steals the plans and makes a cheap and probably reasonably effective knock-off called the Shenyang J-31, which was unveiled in late 2014. In sum, China’s ongoing cyberespionage against the United States is providing China with exploitable intelligence on U.S. capabilities and weaknesses as well as state-of-the-art weaponry. If China were to attack us with cloned weapons nearly as potent as our own, things could go very badly for U.S. forces.

The second factor in China’s favor is its growing economy, which many predict is on the cusp of surpassing that of the United States. I am somewhat skeptical, since much of China’s enormous GDP growth has been funded by soft government credit, and Japanese-style stagflation may already be setting in as a result.

………….

China’s final advantage, when it comes to building up a military second to none, lies in the difference between the political systems of the two countries. America’s two political parties have radically different views of their country’s role in the world. Republicans generally embrace the U.S. military and, prizing it as a force for peace and stability in the world, seek to strengthen it when they are in office. Democrats, on the other hand, are generally suspicious of the American armed forces, favoring instead a lower international profile and peacekeeping efforts led by the UN.

Source: Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream Is the New Threat to World Order (2017) by Steven W. Mosher.