With so much focus at home, our current government is letting a lot happen abroad.
China continues its economic ascent and positions itself as a rival to America while we fumble with gigantic domestic programs that run up the country’s credit card bill like a 16-year-old at the Mall of America.
At this point it’s wise to at least be aware of the challenges and even some possible threats an increasingly powerful China poses to the United States.
Three areas are of the most concern: economics and trade, China’s growing military and naval power and a potent cyberwarfare capability.
In his recent trip to China, President Obama discussed China’s growing anxiety about the inflating American dollar with the Chinese prime minister. China is the largest investor in U.S. government bonds, of our currently $1.3 trillion budget deficit, China has lent $846.7 billion.
In a recent Bloomberg article, Yu Yongding, former adviser to China’s central bank, even said China is worried about the safety of its foreign exchange reserves including those invested in U.S. treasuries.
Though we are gradually working on paying our debt back, China remains economically aggressive, erecting various trade barriers and keeping its currency at artificially low rates.
By sea, China has increased its deep-water navy power to an extent that hasn’t been seen since the massive exploration fleet of the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century. The issue here is these are not wooden junks meant to explore foreign lands but military vessels intended to assert dominance over the South China Sea, a maritime region of the world that oversees one-third of all sea-based commerce.
China plans to expand its fleet of submarines to match that of the United States by 2020. This could pose a threat to the vital economic area of the East Pacific where the United States and other countries currently enjoy unimpeded access by sea.
Perhaps the most jarring of the three categories is China’s cyberwarfare front. Today’s high-tech military arsenal relies on computers, satellites and microprocessors in almost every operation and function. As such, all digital technology is subject to cybersabotage.
Companies and government departments within the U.S. have been dealing with an escalating number of hacking attempts that have been identified as originating from inside China. It was suggested in a 2009 report by a congressional advisory panel that the advanced Chinese hacker community has ties to the country’s central government.
After the Google attack in January 2009, a McAfee executive called Chinese-based attacks “highly sophisticated.” In a Wired article, the McAfee official elaborated, “We have never, ever, outside of the defense industry, seen commercial industrial companies come under that level of a sophisticated attack.”
The important question to pose is to what ends does this present a threat or obstacle to our country?
Twenty-one years ago democracy demonstrators were massacred in Tiananmen Square. Political and human rights are still suppressed in China. The PRC hasn’t always been the most cooperative player on the global stage, and China remains a one-party authoritarian state. Some of these newly developed capabilities only have an offensive use. For all these reasons, the U.S. must be vigilant and skeptical of China’s intentions.
To take just one possible example, a Chinese cyberattack could result in substantial personal data loss for millions of Americans.
And we all know how devastating a day without Facebook would be.
Bryan Griffin is a first-year law student. His column appears every Thursday.
