Pentagon cyberwar report irritates China
Posted by William Heath in Cyberwar at May 29th, 2007
China is investing all-out in an army for smart cyberwarfare, according to a Herald Tribune report on the Pentagon’s annual report on the build-up of Chinese military power.
“China has determined to go for high-tech military modernization, and that requires a lot of expertise from officers and soldiers,” said Andrew Yang, a specialist in the Chinese military at the independent Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan. “The PLA is also developing new doctrines and concepts to go with these high-tech systems that require more refined education systems.”
Who would you back in a cyberwar? A billion very smart and pretty ruthless Chinese, or 220m Americans who invented computers, the Internet, and have the openness to publish an annual risk assessment of their opponents? The Chinese aren’t too chuffed about the report:
“It is a grave violation of the norms governing international relations and brutal interference in China’s internal affairs, to which China expresses strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition,” said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, in remarks posted Monday on the ministry’s Web site.
It must be worth investing quite a lot to start averting this particular war right now.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Was Estonia the alpha test?!
PS Britons played a pretty significant role in the invention of the computer too, as well as the Interweb
May 31st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
China’s defense budget of about £20 billion annually (about a tenth of the U.S. defense budget) might realistically actually be being spent on new aircraft carriers, aircraft and the odd submarine… Not actually sure a Taiwanese source is the right place to go to for this information, although I can understand their concern.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/budget.htm