Mattis, Jamestown Foundation China Program fellow, 2015



Download 0.59 Mb.
Page10/19
Date18.10.2016
Size0.59 Mb.
#2954
1   ...   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   ...   19

Pressure CP



1NC

The United States federal government should


Use targeted sanctions against parties on companies that are responsible for cybercrime, or who receive or use the proceeds of cybercrime for commercial advantage or financial gain.

Adopt a strategy that focuses on undermining the Chinese Communist Party’s control of information.


Sanctions successfully cut down on the main impetus for hacking which is to make money.


Goldman, NYU Center on Law and Security executive director, 2015

(Zachary, “SanctioningCyberCrime: The New Face of



Deterrence”, 5-19, http://insct.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Goldman_Sanctioning_Cyber_Crime.pdf)

With the new cybersecurity sanctions program adopted by the Obama administration last month, the U.S. government is finally beginning to develop the tools to deter financially-motivated cybercrime. With a price tag estimated at $400 billion per year, cyber-enabled theft imposes a substantial tax on American businesses. And while the U.S. government has focused on deterring attacks against critical infrastructureand on the military dimensions of cyber deterrence, financially motivated cyber crime is far more prevalent. In order to stem the kinds of digitally-facilitated crime that saps American competitiveness, the Obama administration should focus on deterring financially-motivated cyber thieves by targeting what they value most: their money. The White House’s new cybersecurity sanctions program provides the perfect framework to do so—if it’s used correctly. Deterrence is fundamentally about manipulating an adversary’s cost/benefit calculations to dissuade him from doing something you want to prevent. Over the last several years, strategists have struggled to adapt venerable Cold War concepts like deterrence to the information age. But deterring financially-motivated cyber criminals—the kinds of people that attacked Target, Anthem Health, and many others—requires an approach tailored to hackers that seek to steal sensitive information that can be monetized quickly. Many companies are also hacked because they hold commercially valuable intellectual property or trade secrets, the theft of which can provide competitive advantages to industry rivals. Indeed, last year the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five members of the Chinese military for stealing this type of information from leading American companies, including Westinghouse and U.S. Steel—data that would be useful to competitors in China, including state-owned enterprises. Law firms, too, have been subject to cyberattack because they hold valuable information about mergers, IPOs, and other corporate activities that can provide an advantage to a competitor (or a company on the other side of the negotiating table). Companies or groups of hackers steal this information for commercial purposes. They do so for profit, and as such, are sensitive to the costs of their activities. Raise the costs high enough and they will move on to other targets or other activities. Criminals involved in cyber theft therefore have different motivations from state-sponsored actors that target the U.S. military or critical infrastructure. The motivations of cyber thieves also differ from those who engage in cyber espionage to steal government secrets, or “hacktivist” groups that commit acts of cyber vandalism to make a political point. This is where the new sanctions program, inaugurated by the Obama Administration in April, comes in. The cybersecurity sanctions program in some respects resembles traditional sanctions programs. It freezes the assets of people designated for harming computer networks and posing a significant threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy, economic health, or financial stability But the sanctions program also contains an innovative provision that allows the government to impose sanctions on companies that are responsible for cyber crime, or who receive or use the proceeds of cybercrime for commercial advantage or private financial gain. Using this authority, the U.S. government could target, for example, banks in Eastern Europe that function as the back office for cybercrime rings, moving and storing their ill-gotten gains. It could also sanction Chinese companies that receive stolen intellectual property and incorporate it into their products, disadvantaging their American or European competitors. Doing so will freeze targeted companies and individuals out of the international financial system, neutralizing the advantage they thought they procured by using stolen data or intellectual property. In so doing, the program has the potential to dry up the market for information stolen by cyber means. If companies cannot make money by engaging in cyber theft, they are much less likely to do so. They will, in other words, be deterred. There will be challenges to using the new sanctions in this way. For starters, the government must feel confident that it can control the potential for escalation, and mitigate the risk that U.S. companies operating abroad will be targeted in retaliation. It also must feel confident in its ability to attribute attacks, and to identify the beneficiaries of commercially-motivated cyber theft. But the first step is to recognize that deterring financially-motivated cyber crime is different from deterring other kinds of cyberattacks. And with the new cybersecurity sanctions program, the United States is beginning to develop and deploy a set of tools designed for the task.

Adopting a strategy to exploit Chinese vulnerabilities in information control successfully deters them.


Bebber, UCF public policy PhD and USN Cryptologic Warfare Officer, 2016

(Jake, “A Cyber-Information Operations Offset Strategy For Countering The Surge Of Chinese Power”, 4-20, http://cimsec.org/cyberspace-information-operations-strategy-countering-surge-chinese-power/24383)



Today, China represents the most significant long-term threat to America and will be the focus here. A number of leading organizations, both within and outside government, have put forward recommendations for a Third Offset. However, these strategies have sought to maintain or widen perceived U.S. advantages in military capabilities rather than target China’s critical vulnerabilities. More importantly, these strategies are predicated on merely affecting China’s decision calculus on whether to use force to achieve its strategic aims – i.e., centered around avoiding war between the U.S. and China. This misunderstands China’s approach and strategy. China seeks to win without fighting, so the real danger is not that America will find itself in a war with China, but that America will find itself the loser without a shot being fired. This paper proposes a Cyberspace-IO Offset strategy directly attacking China’s critical vulnerability: its domestic information control system. By challenging and ultimately holding at risk China’s information control infrastructure, the U.S. can effectively offset China’s advantages and preserve America’s status as the regional security guarantor in Asia. All effective strategies target the adversary’s center of gravity (COG), or basis of power. “Offset strategies” are those options that are especially efficient because they target an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities, while building on U.S. strengths, to “offset” the opponent’s advantages. Ideally, such strategies are difficult for an adversary to counter because they are constrained by their political system and economy. Today, China’s COG is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The stability of this system depends greatly on the ability of the Chinese regime to control information both within China, and between China and the outside. Without this control, opposition groups, minority groups, and factions within the CCP itself could organize more effectively and would have greater situational awareness for taking action. Thus, information control is potentially a critical Chinese vulnerability. If the United States can target the ability of the Chinese regime to control information, it could gain an efficient means to offset Chinese power. This offset strategy, using cyberspace and other information operations (IO) capabilities, should aim to counter China during the critical window in the next ten to twenty years when Chinese economic and military power will surge, and then subside as demographic, economic and social factors limit its growth. Targeting the CCP’s ability to control information can be considered a long-term IO campaign with options to operate across the spectrum of conflict: peacetime diplomacy and battlespace preparation; limited conflict; and, if deterrence fails, full-scale military operations. The goal is to ensure that PRC leaders believe that, as conflict escalates, they will increasingly lose their ability to control information within China and from outside, in part because the U.S. would be prepared to use more drastic measures to impede it. This strategy is most efficient because it serves as an organizing concept for cyber options targeted against China that would otherwise be developed piecemeal. It could serve as a means to prioritize research and development, and better link military planning for cyberspace operations to public diplomacy, strategic communication, and economic policy initiatives. The nature of cyberspace operations makes it difficult to attribute actions back to the United States with certainty, unless we wish it to be known that the U.S. is conducting this activity. Finally, it provides an alternative array of responses that policy makers can use to offset growing Chinese power without immediate direct military confrontation. Demographic, economic and social factors will combine to create a ceiling on Chinese power, ultimately causing it to enter a period of decline much sooner than it expects.[ii] These factors will stress the Communist Party’s ability to exclude economic, social and political participation of dissenters, and create further reliance by the Party on information control systems.

Stuff the CP Does



Stuff CP would do


Bebber, UCF public policy PhD and USN Cryptologic Warfare Officer, 2016

(Jake, “A Cyber-Information Operations Offset Strategy For Countering The Surge Of Chinese Power pt 2”, 5-10, http://cimsec.org/cyber-information-operations-offset-strategy-countering-surge-chinese-power/25085)



Public Diplomacy – At the interagency level, the United States should continue pursuing bilateral, multilateral, and international agreements such as those mentioned above which promote freedom of information, expression and freedom from government oversight and censorship. The U.S. should also continue to strengthen international regimes against cybercrime and intellectual property theft. Internet norms and rules should be standardized across political boundaries where practical. This diplomatic effort ties into longstanding American policy of supporting freedom of speech and protection of universal human rights.

Economic Policy and Trade – Here again, longstanding American policy supporting property rights and free trade legitimize the continued advocacy of international agreements and accords promoting freedom in cyberspace. At the same time, the U.S. must tighten technology export controls to nations like China that continue to restrict access. In the event of industrial espionage or even cyber-attack, the U.S. can impose real economic costs and sanctions. The U.S. can also move on the Global Online Freedom Act, which would, among other things, prohibit U.S. companies from cooperating with foreign governments that engage in censorship or human rights abuses, require the U.S. Trade Representative to report on trade-related issues that arise out of a foreign government’s censorship policies, and impose export controls on telecommunications equipment that can be used to carry out censorship or surveillance.[vii] Some of these provisions can be waived when it suits American interests. In other areas, the U.S. can also promote public cybersecurity regimes, such as international risk insurance tools and accreditation that encourage network protection and hardening in the private sector.

Strategic Communication – In modern war, the actions of a single Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine can have a far-reaching impact on national strategy. While this is often used to highlight the potential implications of an untoward or controversial event, the reverse also holds true. The actions of every member of the U.S. government, from Foreign Service officer, embassy staff and humanitarian assistance officer to those of the military can have an equally positive impact if the appropriate messages are coordinated and timed to unfolding events. The United States should expand strategic communication tools such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. Using new capabilities in cyberspace and in personal communications, a comprehensive program of unbiased news delivery and strategic messaging to the Chinese public on a much larger scale can, over time, provide alternatives to Chinese government propaganda. Not to be forgotten, approximately two million Chinese visit the United States each year as tourists[viii], and around a quarter of a million Chinese students attend college in the U.S.[ix] Each visitor and student represents an opportunity for engagement.

Cyberspace Operations – Being able to deliver effects in and through cyberspace to China is a question of both access and capabilities. China has one of the most robust and sophisticated information control systems in the world, with multiple internal security and military organizations and tens of thousands of Chinese working daily to censor communications and filter access within China and between China and the world. Network penetrations and preplacement access generation needs to occur now, during peacetime, and continue throughout in order to assure capabilities can be delivered when needed. The fact is that when tensions escalate and China erects more firewalls, penetration becomes that much more difficult, if not impossible. This leaves military commanders and policy-makers little choice but to revert to traditional kinetic tools to dissuade Chinese aggression – exactly the scenario they hope to avoid – and plays to China’s strengths. Developing multiple access vectors now with the capability to hold at-risk, at a time and place of our choosing, information control systems in the long run represent an efficient means of directly attacking China’s most critical vulnerability and holding the Communist Party’s political control at risk. This represents an asymmetric counter to China’s growing A2/AD capabilities, and is a far more efficient and economical alternative.

Cyberspace operations reside on a continuum, sometimes offensive, sometimes defensive and sometimes both simultaneously. At the same time the U.S. is developing access vectors and tools to exploit China’s information control systems, it must also harden its own military, government, and civilian critical infrastructure networks. Research suggests that improving cyber defenses limit incentives to infiltrate networks for espionage, intellectual property theft, or cyber-attack. A resilience model should be adopted. Instead of building “cyber walls” using a traditional warfare model, cyber defense should model biological systems that can adapt and recover. Systems can be designed to turn the table on intrusions, misdirecting them down false alleys or “sinkholing” them in so-called “honeypots” for study. This can even be effective in passing back false information or simply causing the attacker to waste time and resources chasing phantoms.[x] On the offensive side of the continuum, experts like retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Thomas see the development and fielding of 13 offensive cyber warfare teams as significant. According to him, the Chinese “now know we are ready to go on the offense. There’s something that’s been put in place that I think is going to change their view.”[xi]



Clandestine Action – Due to the difficulties in acquiring and maintaining access in closed networks, the United States will have to undertake clandestine efforts, both in cyberspace and through traditional means. Policy makers should be careful, however, not to be lulled by the lure of technologically-based cyberspace operations as the preferable alternative to traditional human intelligence operations. While the U.S. is right to continue to pursue advances in unmanned vehicles, radio-frequency and electro-magnetic operations, and space-based computer and communication operations, obtaining and maintaining access in many cases will require mixed-mode penetration: human and cyber action. Cultivating human sources to gain insight into leadership intentions, network configurations, and potential areas of exploitation remain a critical part of a broad information operations campaign. As China continues to pursue clandestine operations against the U.S., both to gather traditional intelligence and to enable their own cyberspace operations, our own counter-intelligence and cyberspace defense capabilities will become that much more important.

These lines of effort will have to be synchronized in a mutually supporting effort. Public diplomacy and strategic communication can be enabled in and through cyberspace. Clandestine action may be required to obtain and maintain access to critical networks. Economic incentives, technology export controls and sanctions will play critical roles at times to advance America’s interests to degrade or disrupt China’s information control systems.



It will be necessary to develop options which degrade China’s information control capabilities incrementally while preserving significant reserves. Historically, this has been especially tricky. Past experience, such as the Vietnam War, suggests that the incremental application of force with too fine of control tends to condition the adversary rather than compel the adversary. The U.S. will need to be able to send “warning shots” that indicate to the CCP that we possess capabilities that will cause them to lose control entirely and threaten their hold on power, allowing the U.S. to prevail. Of course, given that many cyberspace and IO capabilities are perishable once used, the U.S. will need to maintain a host of capabilities able to be delivered across multiple vectors and times and places of our choosing.

One must be mindful that while China’s information controls systems are a critical vulnerability, they are not a gateway to the overthrow of the CCP and the establishment of a democratic government, at least not right away. Data suggests that the vast majority of the Chinese public who utilize the Internet and social media are quite happy with the amount and variety of content available. Only about 10 percent use the Internet for political purposes with the remainder, like their American counterparts, using it for entertainment and socializing.[xii] Therefore, strategic messaging will have to be much less overt and subtler.



We should utilize the natural advantages the U.S. has in the entertainment and public relations world to encourage the public to put pressure on the government gradually, perhaps not directly in the political sphere but rather on natural fissures and tensions already resident, such as corruption, mismanagement, ethnic strife, uneven development, environmental degradation, and the growing wealth gap in China. Consider the recent effort by the U.S. Department of State to publicly highlight air quality in Beijing, resulting in embarrassment as well as change in China’s environmental policies.[xiii] Similar efforts, both public or through providing covert support to internal groups in China, would hopefully have similar impact. The goal will be to keep the CCP looking inward, concerned about social stability, rather than outward, projecting power.

To be successful, it will be necessary to understand at the highest level of detail possible not only the technical aspects of China’s information control apparatus but also its command, control and communication pathways, chain of command, and decision making calculus. Technical intelligence requirements would include network configuration pathways, router and server equipment models, operating and surveillance software versions, administrative controls, wireless hot points and air gaps and fiber network systems. The U.S. will need to know which agencies and bureaucracies are responsible for various kinds of surveillance and what their resident capabilities, gaps and scope of responsibility is. It would be helpful to identify key personalities and understand the resource competition between them in order to exploit them. We need to know how commands are passed down from leadership to operators, and if it is possible to deny, degrade, and in some way get in the middle of those communication pathways. We will also need to know the decision calculus of the Central Standing Committee. What will cause them to want to tighten control, or perhaps better yet, what might they simply ignore? This is certainly not an exhaustive list of intelligence requirements, but gives a sense of the kinds of information that a successful strategy will require.


Pressure Key – 2NC



Pressuring China with sanctions and retaliation is necessary to deter cyber completion—engagement only emboldens them to hack more.


Auslin, AEI resident scholar, 2015

(Michael, “Time For Realism In U.S.-China Relations”, 9-23, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/time-realism-us-china-relations-13915?page=2)



It is time for a new realism in U.S.-China relations. Such realism begins with an official acceptance that we are locked in a competition with China that is of Beijing’s choosing. Our economies may be increasingly interconnected, but no longer can U.S. officials quail at responding to Beijing’s provocations out of fear that trade relations will be harmed. It is time for high-level U.S.-China dialogues to be reset, to use a term once in favor in the Obama Administration, and conducted not as an unearned gift to Beijing, but only when there are concrete goals to be achieved. A state that acts increasingly in violation of global norms of behavior is not one that should be rewarded with pomp and circumstance by U.S. leaders. In addition, it is past time for the U.S. to act as the guarantor of regional stability that it claims to be. That means sending U.S. ships and planes right up to the edges of China’s manmade islands in the South China Sea, something that Obama Administration admitted in Senate testimony last week that it was not doing. By not challenging China’s territorial claims we are in essence confirming them, and sending a message of political weakness to our allies in Asia. A China that knows we will employ our military strength where it is most in question will be far more circumspect in its attempts to undermine the rules of international behavior. As for cyber, it is Beijing that has caused this crisis, and no U.S. administration should be negotiating a pact with the wolf in the sheep pen. First, we should be thinking of financial sanctions and diplomatic freezes as punishment for aggression already committed and that to come. It also is past time to throw some cyber elbows to show we won’t simply sit and take whatever fouls China decides to commit. There is no question that the U.S. is probably more vulnerable that China on the cyber front, but we are steadily being led down the path towards a real cyber Pearl Harbor (such as the shutting down of our energy grid) by our unwillingness to show that we can play the same game. It’s a discomfiting thought, but that is the world we have let ourselves be trapped into. The point of the new realism is not to force a conflict with China. It is to avoid one. Only steady strength, a firm response, and a willingness to speak the truth will show Xi Jinping and his fellow leaders that America is no better friend and no worse adversary. The choice lies entirely with the Chinese leadership. So far, they have ignored Susan Rice’s earnest exhortations, and instead shown a dangerous willingness to undermine the very peace that has allowed their country to grow so much. By acting in our best interests, we will also help deflect China from a path that increasingly looks like one that will result in far greater risks to stability, prosperity, and peace.

Competition is key to make China back down—their whole strategy is to win without fighting which engagement helps.


Bebber, UCF public policy PhD and USN Cryptologic Warfare Officer, 2016

(Jake, “A Cyber-Information Operations Offset Strategy For Countering The Surge Of Chinese Power”, 4-20, http://cimsec.org/cyberspace-information-operations-strategy-countering-surge-chinese-power/24383)



The United States is a status quo power. It seeks to retain its position of dominance while realizing that relative to other powers, its position may rise or fall given the circumstances. It supports the post-World War II international order – a mix of international legal and liberal economic arrangements that promote free trade and the resolution of disputes through international organizations or diplomatic engagement when possible. The United States recognizes the growth of China, and that it will soon achieve “great power” status, if not already. It is most advantageous to the United States if the “rise” (or more correctly, return to great power status) of China occurs peacefully, and within the already established framework of international rules, norms, and standards. There are two important considerations. First is the “singularity” of China with respect to its self-understanding and its role in the world. China views the last two centuries – a time when China was weak internally and under influence from foreign powers – as an aberration in the natural world order. Most Chinese consider their several thousand year history as the story of China occupying the center of the world with “a host of lesser states that imbibed Chinese culture and paid tribute to China’s greatness …” This is the natural order of things. In the West, it was common to refer to China as a “rising power,” but again, this misreads China’s history. China was almost always the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific, punctuated by short periods of turmoil. It just so happened that the birth and growth of the United States took place during one of those periods of Chinese weakness.[iii] The strategic approach of China is markedly different, based on its concept of shi, or the “strategic configuration of power.” The Chinese “way of war” sees little difference in diplomacy, economics and trade, psychological warfare (or in today’s understanding, “information warfare”) and violent military confrontation. To paraphrase the well-known saying, the acme of strategy is to preserve and protect the vital interests of the state without having to resort to direct conflict while still achieving your strategic purpose. The goal is to build up such a dominant political and psychological position that the outcome becomes a foregone conclusion. This is in contrast to Western thought which emphasizes superior power at a decisive point.[iv] To the American leadership, the “most dangerous” outcome of a competition with China would seem to be one that leads to war; hence the near-desperate desire to not undertake any action which might lead China down that path. Yet a better understanding of China suggests that it believes it can (and is) achieving its strategic purpose without having to resort to force. Its military buildup, use of economic trade agreements, diplomacy, and domestic social stability are creating the very political and psychological conditions where the use of force becomes unnecessary. China is quite content to remain in “Phase 0” with the United States, because it believes it is winning there. Thus, the question for America is not “How do we maintain the status quo in Phase 0?” but “How do we win in Phase 0?” The most dangerous course of action is not war with China, but losing to China without a shot being fired.

Sanctions Work – 2NC



Targeted sanctions work


Cooper, CSIS fellow, 2016

(Zack, “The Right Way to Sanction China”, 2-23, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-right-way-sanction-china-15285?page=4)



ERECTING EXTENSIVE sanctions against China would be unwise and infeasible, but more limited sanctions may shape Chinese behavior with fewer negative effects. In particular, measures designed to deter internationally recognized “bad conduct” by Chinese individuals, companies and agencies—particularly those who commit economic espionage—could be effective. On the other hand, sanctions are likely to be less useful in maritime disputes involving ambiguous territorial claims. When considering specific sanctions, policymakers should ask five questions. First, do existing authorities provide mechanisms for sanctioning the actors responsible? Second, would sanctions be sufficiently powerful to compel these or future actors to change their behavior? Third, would foreign partners cooperate in levying such sanctions? Fourth, how might the adversary respond and how damaging would these responses be? Fifth and finally, would the imposition of sanctions reinforce or undermine norms of good conduct and strengthen or weaken the long-term viability of the overall U.S. sanctions position? The answers to these questions vary depending on the specific sanctions under consideration: Countering Chinese economic espionage: The attractiveness of carefully targeted sanctions is most clear in the cyber realm. The United States has already raised concerns about cyber espionage against private corporations and the Department of Justice has indicted five Chinese military hackers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that cyber espionage increased by 50 percent in 2015. U.S. officials have pointed the finger at China for some of the most egregious attacks—including the massive hack of the Office of Personnel Management in which Chinese persons stole security-clearance information for over twenty million U.S. citizens. Although President Obama and President Xi announced a “common understanding” that neither government would engage in cyber economic espionage, early reports suggest that government-sponsored Chinese hackers have continued what has been called “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” Chinese actors engaged in theft of U.S. intellectual property could be designated under existing U.S. authorities, which would effectively prevent them from doing business in U.S. markets or with U.S. companies. Although this punishment might not force domestically focused Chinese companies to change their behavior, it would send a signal to companies with a U.S. presence that engaging in such activity entails significant risks. Such sanctions could be coordinated with efforts to protect trade secrets to demonstrate the seriousness of U.S. concern to Chinese leaders. From an international perspective, targeted sanctions might prove attractive to other developed economies suffering from persistent Chinese cyber espionage. The economic damage from the sanctions themselves would be limited in developed countries because Chinese firms stealing intellectual property are hampering growth abroad. In addition, the risk of China implementing its own sanctions on economic espionage would be limited because U.S. law already prohibits this type of economic espionage. Moreover, Chinese groups already conduct sustained cyber attacks on U.S. businesses, so sanctioning a number of these actors might not substantially change the frequency or fierceness of intrusions. There is no doubt that China could take action in other domains, but targeted designations could set U.S. red lines and make clear that the United States and its partners are willing to take a more forceful stance to uphold norms of good conduct in cyberspace.

Sanctions is what got China to equivocate in the first place—follow up is necessary.


Inserra, Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies research assistant, 2015

(David, “Obama’s Ridiculous Cyber Agreement with China Will Do Nothing to Keep Americans Safe”, 10-1, http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/david-inserra/obamas-ridiculous-cyber-agreement-china-will-do-nothing-keep-americans-safe)



Last week, the White House announced that the U.S. and China had agreed to stop cyber economic espionage and work together to stop cybercrime. Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Too easy. The reality is that the president has just made another paper agreement that will do little to change the behavior of bad actors. While it will certainly make some feel good for having “solved” a problem through only talking, it has deprived us of an opportunity to change China’s behavior through the application of sanctions in the face of their blatant cyber actions. The White House press release is filled with worrisome conclusions, indicating that this agreement ignores the seriousness of this problem and kicks the can down the road. Here are some of the highlights: (1) [T]he United States and China…agree to cooperate…with requests to investigate cybercrimes, collect electronic evidence, and mitigate malicious cyber activity emanating from their territory. Great, but think about the implications. The Chinese will request that the U.S. help it stop all sorts of dissident hackers and activists. The U.S. lives up to its agreements so it will dutifully help the Chinese even as oppressed individuals are jailed for cybercrimes, such as “jeopardizing Internet security” or accessing “illegal and harmful information,”—i.e., anything the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like. Then what stops the Chinese from stonewalling to protect their hackers? Will the Chinese help the U.S. investigate the five Chinese military officers that the U.S. charged with cybercrimes last year? Doubtful. (2) The United States and China agree that neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors. The U.S. does not engage in economic espionage because it goes against U.S. principles of rule of law and property rights. However, while everyone knows that the Chinese engage in economic espionage, Beijing has always vigorously denied it. Less than a week ago, Xi Jinping said, “The Chinese government does not engage in theft of commercial secrets in any form, nor does it encourage or support Chinese companies to engage in such practices in any way.” He emphasized this point throughout his trip to the U.S. What, then, have the Chinese actually agreed to do? They have agreed to stop a behavior that they deny ever engaging in. That doesn’t bode well as an indicator of their future behavior. (3) Both sides are committed to making common effort to further identify and promote appropriate norms of state behavior in cyberspace within the international community. This point underscores how little the U.S. understands with whom it is negotiating. The Chinese have a dramatically different view of cyberspace and warfare. For them, their cyber operations, ranging from the economic to the more traditional government espionage, are just parts of their larger warfare strategy during peacetime. On a domestic level, the U.S. believes the Internet is a tool that enriches commerce and freedom, while the Chinese government fears the Internet for the same reasons. Norm development (agreeing that certain types of behavior are wrong) may constrain actors who all agree to core principles, but when coming from such radically different places, norm development is meaningless. (4) The United States and China agree to establish a high-level joint dialogue mechanism on fighting cybercrime and related issues. This point doubles down on the flawed ideas expressed earlier in the document. But it also betrays a key assumption present throughout the document: the Chinese are victims and partners in the fight against cyber criminals. Regrettably, this is a huge step back to the mindset the Obama administration held years ago. China is not a partner and it is not a victim—it is the perpetrator. By granting China moral equivalence with the U.S., the Obama administration has sacrificed the moral high ground, giving the Chinese exactly what they want—legitimacy. The U.S. government has now all but adopted the Chinese position and language on cyber policy, surrendering to Chinese demands in exchange for a nice sounding press release. What is worse, this agreement will probably stop the U.S. from implementing any of the cyber sanctions waiting in the wings against China. This agreement will do nothing to keep the U.S. safe in cyberspace, but gives China the moral and political legitimacy they want on this issue and will likely keep important cyber sanctions at bay. Of course, we could just trust everything the Chinese say. And if that’s the case, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in China.

2NC Competition – DE=/= Sanctions



Diplomatic engagement isn’t sanctions


Reuters 2015

(“U.S. Weighs Sanctions Over China For Cyber Hacking: REPORT”, 8-30, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-china-hacking-sactions_us_55e3bb3ee4b0aec9f353a6da)



That strategy includes diplomatic engagement, trade policy tools, law enforcement mechanisms, and imposing sanctions on individuals or entities that engage in certain significant, malicious cyber-enabled activities,” the official said. “We are assessing all of our options to respond to these threats in a manner and time frame of our choosing,” the official added.


Download 0.59 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   ...   19



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
united states
whole world
steps necessary
human population
short-term
korean peninsula
current understanding
only factor
next president
idea that we
best strategy
practical applications
only superpower