A bit like the spread of Covid-19, China’s intelligence-gathering operations are taking new forms and expanding into virtually every country in the world. Beijing’s goal appears to be gathering so much intelligence about governments that it can anticipate what they might do and shape their decision-making. Of course, the hacking and espionage also is scooping up technology and taking it back to China where it is “indigenized.”
The latest evidence is this story in today’s New York Times. The Chinese military has developed an invisible cyberattack tool called Aria-body. I wrote extensively about China’s cyberattacks in my book, The New Art of War, but this is a completely new dimension that I’ve never come across. This Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) has “alarming new capabilities,” the Times wrote.
The fact that the Times put this story on the bottom of page A19 demonstrates just how preoccupied we all have become with the coronavirus. While we are focused on the virus, the Chinese government and military are clearly pursuing an agenda to establish Chinese control and influence around the world. I question whether we have the will and intelligence to understand what they are doing. It is stunningly ambitious.
