Network security and informatization are related to the long-term governance of the party, the long-term stability of the country, economic and social development and the well-being of the people. Comrade Xi Jinping stood at the political height of our party “If you can’t pass the hurdle of the Internet, you can’t pass the hurdle of long-term governance”, accurately grasped the opportunities and challenges brought about by the informatization revolution, and clearly stated that we should strive to build our country into a cyber power. The third part of the book “Excerpts of Xi Jinping’s Discussions on Internet Power” edited by the Central Academy of Party History and Documentation is titled “Strive to Build my country into a Cyber Power” and includes relevant expositions by Comrade Xi Jinping.
Looking at the history of world civilizations, humanity has successively undergone agricultural revolution, industrial revolution and information revolution. Every revolution in industrial technology has had a huge and profound impact on human production and life. Today, information technology represented by the Internet is changing with each passing day, leading new changes in social production, creating a new space for human life, expanding new areas of national governance, and greatly improving human ability to understand and transform the world. The Internet has turned the world into a global village where “the voices of chickens and dogs hear each other”, and people separated by thousands of miles no longer “do not communicate with each other”. The world is more colorful because of the Internet, and life is richer because of the Internet.
Human society is undergoing a great information revolution, and China is in the historical process of rapid development of informatization. The trend of the era of information revolution and the historical process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation have had a historic intersection, which has brought great benefits to us in building a modern socialist country in an all-round way. New opportunities and challenges. Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out that informatization has brought golden opportunities to the Chinese nation. We are at the right time, and we must follow the trend, ride on the trend, and meet each other halfway.
With the rapid development of network information technology and its comprehensive integration into social production and life, it has also profoundly changed the global economic pattern, interest pattern, and security pattern. Major countries in the world regard the Internet as the focus of economic development and technological innovation, and regard the Internet as a strategic direction for seeking new competitive advantages. Whether it can adapt to and lead the development of the Internet has become a key to determining the rise and fall of a big country. Whoever controls the Internet will grasp the initiative of the times; whoever despises the Internet will be abandoned by the times. To a certain extent, it can be said that those who win the Internet win the world. Informatization provides a favorable opportunity for my country to seize the commanding heights of a new round of development and build new advantages in international competition.
China attaches great importance to the development of the Internet. Since its access to the international Internet, we have strengthened the construction of information infrastructure, developed the network economy, and promoted information to benefit the people in accordance with the ideas of active utilization, scientific development, law-based management, and security assurance. At the same time, we have carried out cyberspace governance in accordance with the law, and cyberspace has become increasingly clear. Although it started relatively late, after more than 20 years of hard work, it quickly narrowed the informatization gap with developed countries and became a network powerhouse that has attracted worldwide attention. At the same time, we must also see that although my country’s network information technology and network security have made great achievements, there is still a big gap compared with the world’s advanced level. We are still relatively backward in terms of independent innovation, the differences between regions and urban and rural areas are relatively obvious, and the bottleneck of domestic Internet development is still relatively prominent.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has judged the situation, looked far ahead, followed the trend, and sounded the clarion call to march towards a cyber power. On February 27, 2014, at the first meeting of the Central Network Security and Informatization Leading Group, Comrade Xi Jinping proposed that we should proceed from the international and domestic trends, make an overall layout, coordinate all parties, innovate and develop, and strive to build my country into a cyber power .
Building a cyber power is a major decision made by the Party Central Committee based on the overall development of the Party and the country. After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee proceeded from the great struggle with many new historical characteristics, attached importance to the Internet, developed the Internet, and governed the Internet. sexual achievement.
We put forward the strategic goal of building a strong network country, basically established the top-level design and overall structure of network information work, issued the “Opinions on Strengthening Network Security and Informatization Work”, basically straightened out the Internet management leadership system and mechanism, and formed a national “one game of chess” work pattern; The security of Internet ideology has been effectively safeguarded, positive online propaganda has been made bigger and stronger, and heavy blows and sharp swords have been used to manage and control the Internet. A series of major struggles in the field of Internet ideology have been won, which has fundamentally reversed the past. In the situation of being occupied and passively beaten, the positive energy of cyberspace is stronger and the main theme is more high-spirited; the national network security barrier is further consolidated, the network security law is formulated and implemented, the construction of network security guarantee capabilities is strengthened, and the security protection of key information infrastructure is continuously strengthened. Activities have been effectively curbed, and the awareness of network security and protection capabilities of the whole society have been significantly enhanced; the military-civilian integration of network information has achieved phased results, and the network security deterrence and countermeasure capabilities have been continuously enhanced; attention has been paid to the driving and leading role of informatization in economic and social development, “Internet + “The action plan has been implemented in depth, the digital economy and the sharing economy have flourished; positive progress has been made in core technology innovation in the information field, breakthroughs have been made in the research of new-generation mobile communication (5G), high-performance computing, quantum communication and other technologies, and a number of network information enterprises have entered the world In the forefront; the international discourse power and influence of cyberspace have been significantly improved, holding high the banner of cyber sovereignty, promoting the construction of a community of shared future in cyberspace, actively participating in the process of global Internet governance, creating and successfully hosting the World Internet Conference, and winning More and more recognition and support; speed up the construction of network infrastructure and the popularization of information services, the widespread popularization of new technologies and new applications such as online transactions, mobile payment, and shared travel; the accelerated development of e-government affairs; The service level continues to improve, and the people have a greater sense of gain, happiness, and security. The achievement of these historic achievements fully proves that the Party Central Committee’s decision on strengthening the party’s centralized and unified leadership over cybersecurity and informatization work and a series of strategic deployments for cybersecurity and informatization work are completely correct.
The new era calls for new ideas, and new practices breed new theories. In the process of striving to build a strong network country, we have continuously promoted theoretical innovation and practical innovation, not only blazing a way to govern the network with Chinese characteristics, but also put forward a series of new ideas, new viewpoints and new conclusions, forming the strategic thinking of a strong network country. To sum up, there are mainly the following aspects.
First, clarify the important position of cybersecurity and informatization work in the overall situation of the party and the country. We propose that there will be no national security without network security, and no modernization without informatization. If we do not pass the hurdle of being in power for a long time, we must place cybersecurity and informatization work in the overall planning of the party and the country, and earnestly strengthen the party’s centralized and unified leadership.
Second, clarify the strategic goal of building a cyber power. We propose that we must accelerate the construction of a cyber power from the height of realizing the “two centenary” goals and the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In accordance with the requirements of strong technology, strong content, strong foundation, strong talents, and strong international discourse power, we must move towards the basic popularization of network infrastructure, significant enhancement of independent innovation capabilities, comprehensive development of the digital economy, strong network security guarantees, and balanced network offensive and defensive capabilities. Keep moving forward, and finally achieve the goal of advanced technology, developed industry, both offensive and defensive capabilities, full control of network control, and indestructible network security.
Third, clarify the principles and requirements for building a cyber power. We propose that we must adhere to the principles of innovative development, governing by law, ensuring security, promoting benefits and eliminating disadvantages, and benefiting the people, adhere to innovation-driven development, cultivate new kinetic energy with informatization, and use new kinetic energy to promote new development; adhere to the rule of law, so that the Internet will always be under the rule of law. We will continue to operate healthily on track; adhere to the correct concept of network security, and build a national network security barrier; adhere to the principle of equal emphasis on preventing risks and promoting healthy development, and grasp opportunities and challenges, so that the Internet can better benefit the society; The people have a greater sense of gain in sharing the fruits of Internet development.
Fourth, clarify the international propositions for Internet development and governance. We propose to adhere to the four principles of global Internet governance: respecting Internet sovereignty, maintaining peace and security, promoting openness and cooperation, and building a good order. The five-point proposal for building a community of shared future in cyberspace, such as ensuring network security and building an Internet governance system, emphasizes joint advancement of development, joint maintenance of security, joint participation in governance, and joint sharing of achievements, and jointly build a peaceful, secure, open, and cooperative cyberspace.
Fifth, clarify the basic methods for doing a good job in cybersecurity and informatization work. We realize that cybersecurity and informatization work involves many fields, and it is necessary to strengthen overall planning and coordination, implement comprehensive management, and form a strong work force. It is necessary to grasp the dialectical relationship between security and development, freedom and order, openness and autonomy, management and service, and comprehensively promote various tasks such as network content construction, network security, informatization, and international governance of cyberspace.
General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important thoughts on the network power, adhere to the Marxist position, viewpoint and method, based on the new era background of human beings entering the information society, systematically summed up our party’s practical experience in network management and network governance, and profoundly answered why we should build a network power and how to build a network power. A series of major theoretical and practical issues such as building a powerful network country, with a high-level view, overall control, profound thinking, and rich connotations, have become the guide to action leading the development of my country’s Internet information industry, and are the fundamental principles for doing a good job in Internet information work. Continuously enrich and develop.
Focusing on the overall development of human society, Comrade Xi Jinping creatively put forward the concept of making the Internet better benefit the world and the people of all countries, and building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. He proposed a Chinese plan for global Internet development and governance, and contributed Chinese wisdom. The mind of a responsible big country and Comrade Xi Jinping’s broad mind of the leader of a big country to seek peace and development for the world and civilization and progress for mankind.
We must combine in-depth study of Comrade Xi Jinping’s important expositions on building a strong network country, strengthen the “four consciousnesses”, strengthen the “four self-confidence”, and achieve “two safeguards”, constantly explore new paths for building a strong network country, and open up a new realm of global network governance , Let the Internet become a powerful boost to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
(Author: Xu Shan, Director of the Second Division of the First Research Department of the Central Academy of Party History and Documentation, Deputy Editor)
4. Protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens
5. Promoting Digital Economy Cooperation
6. Build an online cultural exchange platform
Chapter 4 Action Plan
1. Advocate and promote peace and stability in cyberspace
2. Promoting the construction of a rules-based cyberspace order
3. Continue to expand partnerships in cyberspace
4. Actively promote the reform of the global Internet governance system
V. Deepen international cooperation in combating cyber terrorism and cybercrime
6. Advocate the protection of citizens’ rights and interests such as the right to privacy
7. Promote the development of the digital economy and the sharing of digital dividends
8. Strengthen the construction and protection of global information infrastructure
9. Promoting Network Cultural Exchange and Mutual Learning
conclusion
preamble
”Cyberspace is a common space for human activities, and the future and destiny of cyberspace should be shared by all countries in the world. Countries should strengthen communication, expand consensus, and deepen cooperation to jointly build a community of shared future in cyberspace.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping, December 16, 2015 In today’s world, information technology represented by the Internet is changing with each passing day, leading new changes in social production, creating a new space for human life, expanding new areas of national governance, and greatly improving human beings’ ability to understand and transform the world. As a common wealth of human society, the Internet has turned the world into a “global village”. Countries are interconnected in cyberspace, their interests are intertwined, and they share weal and woe. Maintaining peace and security in cyberspace, promoting openness and cooperation, and jointly building a community with a shared future in cyberspace conform to the common interests of the international community and are also the common responsibility of the international community. The “Cyberspace International Cooperation Strategy” comprehensively declares China’s policy stance on international issues related to cyberspace, and systematically explains the basic principles, strategic goals and action points of China’s external work in the cyber field, aiming to guide China’s participation in cyberspace international cooperation in the future. Exchanges and cooperation, promote the joint efforts of the international community, strengthen dialogue and cooperation, jointly build a peaceful, secure, open, cooperative, and orderly cyberspace, and establish a multilateral, democratic, and transparent global Internet governance system.
Chapter 1 Opportunities and Challenges
Against the backdrop of multi-polarization of the world, economic globalization, cultural diversity, and profound changes in the global governance system, mankind has ushered in a new era of information revolution. The information and communication technology represented by the Internet is changing with each passing day, profoundly changing people’s production and lifestyle, and increasingly stimulating market innovation, promoting economic prosperity, and promoting social development. Cyberspace has increasingly become a new channel for information dissemination, a new space for production and life, a new engine for economic development, a new carrier for cultural prosperity, a new platform for social governance, a new link for exchanges and cooperation, and a new frontier for national sovereignty.
Cyberspace has brought great opportunities to mankind, but it has also brought many new issues and challenges. The security and stability of cyberspace has become a global concern that concerns the sovereignty, security and development interests of all countries. Problems such as unbalanced development, unsound rules, and irrational order in the Internet field have become increasingly prominent. The “digital divide” between countries and regions continues to widen. Critical information infrastructure has relatively large risks and hidden dangers. It is difficult for the global Internet basic resource management system to reflect the wishes and interests of most countries. Cyber terrorism has become a global public hazard, and cybercrime is spreading. Misuse of information and communication technologies to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and engage in large-scale network surveillance occurs from time to time. Cyberspace lacks international rules that generally and effectively regulate the behavior of al
l parties, and its own development is constrained.
In the face of problems and challenges, no country can survive alone. The international community should conduct dialogue and cooperation in the spirit of mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, and realize global governance of cyberspace based on rules.
Chapter II Basic Principles
China has always been a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of international order. China unswervingly follows the path of peaceful development, adheres to the correct concept of justice and interests, and promotes the establishment of a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation. The theme of China’s cyberspace international cooperation strategy is peaceful development, with win-win cooperation as the core, and advocating peace, sovereignty, co-governance, and universal benefits as the basic principles of international exchanges and cooperation in cyberspace.
1. The principle of peace
Cyberspace is interconnected and the interests of all countries are increasingly intertwined. A safe, stable and prosperous cyberspace is of great significance to all countries and the world.
The international community must earnestly abide by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, especially the principles of non-use or threat of use of force and peaceful settlement of disputes to ensure peace and security in cyberspace. All countries should jointly oppose the use of information and communication technologies to carry out hostile and aggressive acts, prevent cyber arms races, prevent conflicts in cyberspace, and insist on peacefully resolving disputes in cyberspace. We should abandon the Cold War mentality, zero-sum game and double standards, and seek peace through cooperation on the basis of fully respecting the security of other countries, and strive to realize our own security in common security.
Cyber terrorism is a new threat affecting international peace and security. The international community should take practical measures to prevent and cooperate in combating cyber terrorism. Prevent terrorists from using the Internet to spread terrorist extremist ideas, plan and implement terrorist activities.
2. Principle of Sovereignty
The principle of sovereign equality established in the Charter of the United Nations is the basic norm of contemporary international relations, covering all areas of state-to-state exchanges, and should also apply to cyberspace. Countries should respect each other’s right to independently choose the path of network development, network management model, Internet public policy, and equal participation in international cyberspace governance, and refrain from engaging in cyber hegemony, not interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, and not engaging in, condoning or supporting cyberspace that endangers the national security of other countries. Activity.
Clarifying the sovereignty of cyberspace can not only reflect the responsibilities and rights of governments to manage cyberspace in accordance with the law, but also help countries build a platform for positive interaction between governments, enterprises and social groups, and create a platform for the development of information technology and international exchanges and cooperation. A healthy ecological environment.
The governments of all countries have the right to manage the network according to law, have jurisdiction over the information and communication infrastructure, resources, and information and communication activities within their own borders, and have the right to protect their own information systems and information resources from threats, interference, attacks and destruction, and to ensure the security of citizens in cyberspace. legal interest. Governments of all countries have the right to formulate their own Internet public policies, laws and regulations without any external interference. While exercising their own rights in accordance with the principle of sovereign equality, countries also need to fulfill corresponding obligations. Countries must not use information and communication technology to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, and must not use their own advantages to damage the security of other countries’ information and communication technology product and service supply chains.
3. The principle of co-governance
Cyberspace is a common activity space for mankind, and it needs to be jointly built and governed by all countries in the world. The international governance of cyberspace should first adhere to multilateral participation. Countries, regardless of size, strength, wealth or poverty, are equal members of the international community and have the right to equally participate in the construction of international order and rules in cyberspace through international network governance mechanisms and platforms, so as to en
sure that the future development of cyberspace is shared by people of all countries. master.
Second, multi-party participation should be adhered to. The role of the government, international organizations, Internet companies, technical communities, non-governmental organizations, and individual citizens should be brought into play to build an all-round and multi-level governance platform. Countries should strengthen communication and exchanges, improve dialogue and consultation mechanisms in cyberspace, and jointly formulate international rules in cyberspace. As an important channel, the United Nations should give full play to its coordinating role, coordinate the positions of all parties, and build international consensus. Other international mechanisms and platforms should also give play to their respective advantages and provide useful supplements. The international community should jointly manage and fairly distribute basic Internet resources, establish a multilateral, democratic, and transparent global Internet governance system, and realize Internet resource sharing, responsibility sharing, and cooperative governance.
4. The principle of inclusiveness
The integrated development of the Internet and various industries has had an overall and revolutionary impact on the economic structure, social form and innovation system of various countries, providing a strong impetus for world economic growth and the realization of sustainable development goals. Promoting the universal benefits of the Internet to benefit all regions and countries will provide assistance for the effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The international community should continue to promote openness and cooperation in the Internet field, enrich the connotation of openness, improve the level of openness, build more platforms for communication and cooperation, promote complementary advantages and common development in cyberspace, ensure that everyone shares the fruits of Internet development, and realize the goals set by the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society. The goal of building a people-oriented, development-oriented and inclusive information society.
Countries should actively promote bilateral, regional and international development cooperation, especially increase financial and technical assistance to developing countries in network capacity building to help them seize digital opportunities and bridge the “digital divide”.
Chapter III Strategic Objectives
The strategic objectives of China’s participation in international cooperation in cyberspace are to firmly safeguard China’s cyber sovereignty, security and development interests, ensure the safe and orderly flow of Internet information, improve the level of international connectivity, maintain peace, security and stability in cyberspace, promote the international rule of law in cyberspace, and promote The development of the global digital economy will deepen cultural exchanges and mutual learning on the Internet, so that the achievements of Internet development will benefit the whole world and better benefit the people of all countries.
1. Safeguarding Sovereignty and Security
China is committed to maintaining peace and security in cyberspace, and building a fair and reasonable international order in cyberspace on the basis of national sovereignty, and is actively promoting and consolidating international consensus in this regard. China firmly opposes any country interfering in the internal affairs of other countries through the Internet, and maintains that all countries have the right and responsibility to maintain their own cyber security, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of all parties in cyberspace through national laws and policies. The tendency to strengthen armaments and strengthen deterrence in cyberspace is not conducive to international security and strategic mutual trust. China is committed to promoting all parties to effectively abide by the basic norms of international relations such as peaceful settlement of disputes and non-use or threat of use of force, establish consultation and mediation mechanisms, prevent and avoid conflicts, and prevent cyberspace from becoming a new battlefield.
The construction of national defense forces in cyberspace is an important part of China’s national defense and military modernization, and it follows the consistent military strategy of active defense. China will give full play to the important role of the military in safeguarding national cyberspace sovereignty, security and development interests, accelerate the construction of cyberspace forces, improve cyberspace situational awareness, network defense, support national cyberspace operations and participate in international cooperation capabilities, and curb and control cyberspace. A major crisis in space, to ensure national network security, maintain national security and social stability.
Building an international rule system As a new frontier, cyberspace urgently needs to formulate relevant rules and codes of conduct. China advocates the formulation of international rules and norms of national behavior in cyberspace that are generally accepted by all countries under the framework of the United Nations, establish the basic norms that countries and various actors should follow in cyberspace, regulate the behavior of all parties, and promote cooperation among countries to maintain cyberspace security. , stability and prosperity. China supports and actively participates in the international rule-making process, and will continue to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with the international community and make its own contribution. China is a staunch defender of cyber security. China is also a victim of hacker attacks. China opposes any form of hacker attacks. No matter what kind of hacker attacks are illegal and criminal, they should be cracked down in accordance with laws and relevant international conventions. Cyber attacks are usually transnational and difficult to trace. China advocates that all countries jointly maintain cyberspace security through constructive consultation and cooperation. 3. Promoting Fair Internet Governance China advocates building a multilateral, democratic and transparent global Internet governance system through equal participation and joint decision-making by the international community. All countries should enjoy equal rights to participate in Internet governance. Basic Internet resources should be allocated fairly, and key information infrastructure such as Internet root servers should be jointly managed. It is necessary to ensure the inclusiveness and openness of relevant international processes and strengthen the representation and voice of developing countries. China supports the strengthening of communication and cooperation among various stakeholders, including governments, international organizations, Internet companies, technical communities, non-governmental organizations, and individual citizens. All stakeholders should play a role that matches their own roles in the above-mentioned governance model, and the government should play a key leading role in Internet governance, especially public policy and security, to achieve joint participation, scientific management, and democratic decision-making. 4. Protect the legitimate rights and interests of citizens China supports the freedom and openness of the Internet, fully respects the rights and basic freedoms of citizens in cyberspace, protects the public’s right to know, participate, express, and supervise in cyberspace, and protects personal privacy in cyberspace. At the same time, cyberspace is not a “place outside the law”. Like the real society, cyberspace should not only promote freedom, but also maintain order. China is committed to promoting the effective governance of cyberspace and realizing the organic integration of free flow of information with national security and public interests. 5. Promoting Digital Economy Cooperation China vigorously implements the strategy of network power, national informatization strategy, national big data strategy, and “Internet +” action plan, vigorously develops e-commerce, strives to promote the deep integration of the Internet and the real economy, promotes the optimization of resource allocation, and promotes the improvement of total factor productivity. Play an active role in promoting innovative development, transforming the mode of economic growth, and adjusting the economic structure. China upholds the market concept of fairness, openness and competition, and while developing itself, adheres to the principles of cooperation and inclusiveness, promotes the development of investment and trade around the world, and promotes the development of the global digital economy. China advocates the promotion of fair and free trade in the international community, opposes trade barriers and trade protectionism, promotes the establishment of an open and secure digital economic environment, and ensures that the Internet serves economic development and innovation. China advocates further promoting the realization of fair, reasonable and universal Internet access, the popularization of Internet technology, and the diversity of Internet languages, strengthening exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries and regions in network security and information technology, and jointly promoting the development of Internet technology and innovation, to ensure that everyone can share the digital dividend equally, and to achieve sustainable development of cyberspace. China insists on ensuring development through security and promoting security through development. To maintain the healthy and strong development of the digital economy, we should neither pursue absolute security to hinder the vitality of development, restrict openness an
d interoperability, and imprison technological innovation, nor should we avoid necessary security supervision measures on the grounds of market liberalization and trade liberalization. Different countries and regions have different levels of Internet development and network security protection capabilities. We should provide assistance within our capabilities to developing countries to improve their network security capabilities, bridge the “digital divide” between developing countries and developed countries, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win digital economy. Make up for the shortcomings of global network security.
6. Build an online cultural exchange platform
The Internet is an important carrier for spreading the excellent culture of mankind and promoting positive energy. Cyberspace is the common spiritual home of mankind. All countries should strengthen cooperation, jointly shoulder the heavy responsibility of using the Internet to inherit excellent culture, cultivate and develop a positive Internet culture, give full play to the important role of culture in nourishing human beings, conserving society, and promoting economic development, and jointly promote the construction of Internet civilization and the prosperity and development of Internet culture .
China is willing to work with other countries to give full play to the advantages of the Internet communication platform, build a bridge of international exchanges through the Internet, and promote exchanges and mutual learning of excellent cultures of various countries. Strengthen the capacity building of network culture dissemination, promote the diversified development of international network culture, enrich people’s spiritual world, and promote the progress of human civilization.
Chapter 4 Action Plan
China will actively participate in relevant international processes in the cyber field, strengthen bilateral, regional and international dialogue and cooperation, enhance international mutual trust, seek common development, and jointly deal with threats, with a view to finally reaching international rules for cyberspace that are generally accepted by all parties, and building a fair and reasonable global Cyberspace Governance System.
1. Advocate and promote peace and stability in cyberspace
Participate in discussions on bilateral and multilateral confidence-building measures, take preventive diplomacy measures, and respond to various cyber security threats through dialogue and consultation.
Strengthen dialogue, study new threats in the cyber domain that affect international peace and security, jointly curb the abuse of information technology, and prevent an arms race in cyberspace.
Promote discussions in the international community on the peaceful nature of cyberspace, and study the application of international law to cyberspace from the perspective of maintaining international security and strategic mutual trust and preventing cyber conflicts.
2. Promoting the construction of a rules-based cyberspace order
Give full play to the important role of the United Nations in the formulation of international rules in cyberspace, support and promote the adoption of information and network security-related resolutions by the United Nations General Assembly, and actively promote and participate in processes such as the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Information Security.
The member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization submitted the updated text of the “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to the UN General Assembly in January 2015. The “Code of Conduct” is the first document in the world that comprehensively and systematically expounds the code of conduct in cyberspace. It is an important public security product provided by China and other SCO member states to promote the international community to formulate a code of conduct in cyberspace. China will continue to strengthen international dialogue on this initiative and strive for broad international understanding and support for it.
Support the universal participation of the international community in international discussions and consultations on cyber issues on an equal basis.
3. Continue to expand partnerships in cyberspace
China is committed to establishing extensive cooperative partnerships with all parties in the international community, actively expanding dialogue mechanisms on cyber affairs with other countries, and extensively carrying out bilateral cyber foreign policy exchanges and practical cooperation.
Hold international conferences such as the World Internet Conference (Wuzhen Summit), continue to hold bilateral Internet forums with relevant countries, hold seminars on Internet issues under the framework of China, Japan, South Korea, the ASEAN Regional Forum, and the Boao Forum for Asia, etc., to expand the network dialogue and cooperation platform.
Promote and deepen practical cooperation in cyber s
ecurity between the SCO and BRICS countries. Promote the balanced development of the ASEAN Regional Forum cyber security process. Actively promote and support CICA, Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China-Arab Cooperation Forum, China-CELAC Forum, Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization and other regional organizations to carry out cyber security cooperation. Promote the initiative of APEC, G20 and other organizations to cooperate in the fields of Internet and digital economy. Explore exchange dialogues with other regional organizations in the cyber arena.
4. Actively promote the reform of the global Internet governance system
Participate in the follow-up process of the implementation of the outcomes of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, promote the international community to consolidate and implement the consensus on the outcomes of the summit, and fairly share the results of the development of the information society.
Promote the mechanism reform of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum, and promote the forum to play a greater role in Internet governance. Strengthen the forum’s decision-making capabilities on Internet governance matters, promote the forum to obtain a stable source of funding, and develop open and transparent procedures for selecting relevant members and submitting reports.
Participate in international discussions aimed at promoting the fair distribution and management of key Internet resources, actively promote the international reform of ICANN, make it a truly independent international organization, and continuously improve its representativeness and openness in decision-making and operation transparent. Actively participate in and promote global Internet governance platform activities such as the “Future of the Internet” action initiative of the World Economic Forum.
V. Deepen international cooperation in combating cyber terrorism and cybercrime
Discuss the code of conduct and specific measures for the international community to cooperate in combating cyber terrorism, including exploring the formulation of an international convention against terrorism in cyberspace, to enhance the consensus of the international community on combating cybercrime and cyberterrorism, and provide a basis for countries to carry out specific law enforcement cooperation.
Support and promote the UN Security Council to play an important role in international cooperation against cyber terrorism.
Support and promote the work of the United Nations to combat cybercrime, participate in the work of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Cybercrime and other mechanisms, and promote the discussion and formulation of global international legal instruments against cybercrime within the framework of the United Nations.
Strengthen regional cooperation, rely on the Asia-Pacific region’s annual meeting and coordination mechanism to carry out cooperation in combating information technology crimes, actively participate in relevant cooperation with regional organizations such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, and promote the institutional arrangements for the BRICS countries to combat cybercrime and cyberterrorism.
Strengthen policy exchanges and law enforcement cooperation with other countries to combat cybercrime and cyberterrorism. Actively explore the establishment of an institutionalized dialogue and exchange platform for combating cyber terrorism, establish a bilateral police cooperation mechanism with the police of other countries, improve the judicial assistance mechanism for combating cybercrime, and strengthen the exchange of technical experience in combating cybercrime.
6. Advocate the protection of citizens’ rights and interests such as the right to privacy
Support the discussions of the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council on privacy protection issues, and promote the establishment of principles of personal privacy protection in cyberspace. Promote countries to take measures to stop the use of the Internet to infringe on personal privacy, and exchange practices and practices on respecting and protecting personal privacy in cyberspace.
Promote enterprises to raise awareness of data security protection, support enterprises to strengthen industry self-discipline, and discuss best practices in cyberspace personal information protection. Promote cooperation between the government and enterprises to jointly protect personal privacy in cyberspace.
7. Promote the development of the digital economy and the sharing of digital dividends
Promote the implementation of the goal of building a people-centered, development-oriented, and inclusive information society set by the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, so as to promote the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Support Internet-based innovation and entrepreneurship, and promote the digital transformation of industry, agriculture, and service industries. Promote the informatization development of small, medium and micro enterprises. Promote investment in the ICT sector. Expand broadband access and improve broadband quality. Improve the digital skills of the public and increase digital inclusion. Enhance the availability, integrity, confidentiality and reliability of online transactions, and develop credible, stable and reliable Internet applications.
Support the provision of cyber security capacity building assistance to developing countries, including technology transfer, key information infrastructure construction and personnel training, etc., to transform the “digital divide” into digital opportunities, and allow more developing countries and their people to share the benefits brought by the Internet. Development Opportunities.
Promote the formulation of comprehensive cyberspace trade rules and promote the effective coordination of relevant policies of various countries. Carry out international cooperation in e-commerce, and improve the level of facilitation in customs clearance and logistics. Protect intellectual property rights, oppose trade protectionism, form a world network market, and promote the prosperity and development of the global network economy.
Strengthen Internet technology cooperation and sharing, promote technical cooperation among countries in the fields of network communications, mobile Internet, cloud computing, Internet of Things, and big data, jointly solve Internet technology development problems, and jointly promote the development of new industries and new formats. Strengthen talent exchanges and jointly cultivate innovative network talents.
Closely combined with the “Belt and Road” construction, promote and support China’s Internet companies in the joint manufacturing, finance, information and communication fields to take the lead in going out, participate in international competition in accordance with the principle of fairness, jointly explore the international market, and build a cross-border industrial chain system. Encourage Chinese enterprises to actively participate in the capacity building of other countries, help developing countries develop distance education, telemedicine, e-commerce and other industries, and promote the social development of these countries.
8. Strengthen the construction and protection of global information infrastructure
Jointly promote the construction of global information infrastructure and pave the way for smooth information flow. Promote the interconnection of information infrastructure with neighboring countries and other countries and the construction of the “Belt and Road”, so that more countries and people can share the development opportunities brought by the Internet.
Strengthen international cooperation, raise the awareness of protecting critical information infrastructure, promote the establishment of an orderly sharing mechanism for government, industry and enterprise network security information, and strengthen the security protection of critical information infrastructure and its important data.
Promote countries to reach a consensus on the protection of critical information infrastructure, formulate cooperation measures for the protection of critical information infrastructure, and strengthen legislation, experience and technical exchanges on the protection of critical information infrastructure.
Promote the strengthening of cooperation among countries in early warning and prevention, emergency response, technological innovation, standards and regulations, and information sharing, and improve the ability to prevent and respond to cyber risks.
9. Promoting Network Cultural Exchange and Mutual Learning
Promote the development of network cultural cooperation among countries, let the Internet fully display the achievements of civilizations of all countries and nations, become a platform for cultural exchanges and mutual learning, and enhance emotional exchanges and spiritual communication between people of all countries. Taking the animation and game industry as one of the key areas, pragmatically carry out cultural cooperation with countries along the “Belt and Road”, and encourage Chinese enterprises to fully rely on local cultural resources to provide differentiated online cultural products and services. Utilize domestic and foreign online culture expo trading platforms to promote Chinese online cultural products to go global. Support Chinese enterprises to participate in important international network cultural exhibitions. Promote the overseas landing of Internet cultural enterprises.
conclusion
The 21st century is the era of network and information technology. At a new historical starting point, China has proposed the grand goal of building a cyber power. This is an important measure to implement the “Four Comprehensives” strategi
The 21st century is the era of network and information technology. At a new historical starting point, China has proposed the grand goal of building a cyber power. This is an important measure to implement the “Four Comprehensives” strategi
c layout, and it is inevitable to realize the “Two Centenary” goals and the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. choose. China has always been a builder, maintainer and contributor of cyberspace. The development of China’s Internet information industry will not only benefit the Chinese people, but also contribute to the security and development of the global Internet.
While promoting the strategic deployment of building a cyber power, China will uphold the concept of a new type of international relations centered on win-win cooperation, and is committed to joining hands with the international community to strengthen communication and exchanges, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, build new partners for cooperation, and create A community with a shared future for mankind, making greater contributions to building a safe, stable, and prosperous cyberspace.
Chinese Military Perspective on the New Development Trends in Foreign Military Network Warfare
After decades of development, cyberspace has become an important field of production and life in human society, and has become the fifth-dimensional battlefield after “land, sea, air, and sky.” In recent years, the United States and other developed countries have rushed to introduce cyberspace strategies, build (expand) cyber warfare forces, and implement cyber offensive and defensive operations. The moves in the construction, development, and application of cyber warfare deserve the attention of the world.
Pay attention to cyberspace security, and accelerate the establishment of supporting strategies and regulations
Since cyberspace security is a security issue in an emerging field, most countries lack supporting strategies and systems of laws and regulations. In recent years, major countries in the world have positioned it as a major security field, and the pace of promulgating network security strategies and regulations has been significantly accelerated. For example, since the first national network security strategy was proposed in 2000, the United States has continuously formulated, expanded, and updated various policies, strategies, regulations, and regulations in the field of network security. The network strategy alone includes the “National Network Strategy”, “International Cyberspace Strategy”, ” The Cyber Strategy of the Ministry of National Defense and the cyber strategy of the military services, etc., are used to standardize and guide the development and application of cyber warfare. In October 2014, the U.S. military also issued the world’s first joint doctrine “Cyberspace Operations”, which elaborated and standardized the concepts, actions, and tasks of cyberspace operations. In response to cyber attacks by the United States and NATO, Russia announced the “Russian Federation Cyber Security Strategic Concept” in 2014, and promulgated a new version of the “Information Security Doctrine” in 2016, proposing to ensure network information security. In order to strengthen the overall guidance of network security affairs, India issued the “National Cyber Security Policy” in 2013 and plans to issue a “National Cyber Security Strategy”; the Indian military has formulated policies such as the “Army Cyber Security Policy” and “Navy Information Security Policy” regulations.
Strengthen the professional construction of cyber warfare forces, and pay attention to the use of non-governmental network forces
In recent years, the establishment, integration, and expansion of specialized cyber warfare forces have become a trend among foreign militaries. The United States was the first country to propose the concept of cyber warfare, and it was also the first country to form a professional cyber warfare force. The U.S. military established the Cyber Command in 2010, and upgraded it to a first-level joint operations command in 2018. The number of cyber task forces under its jurisdiction has reached 133, with about 6,200 personnel. Russia established a professional information warfare unit in 2013, and cyber warfare is an important function of it. The Japanese Self-Defense Force established the Cyber Defense Team in 2014, initially with more than 100 members, and has now increased to nearly 300, and plans to expand to a thousand in the future. The United Kingdom also announced in 2020 that it will soon create a national cyber force. On this basis, foreign militaries have generally carried out systematic design and layout of cyber warfare forces. In the field of cyber warfare, forces such as network attack, network defense, and network operation and maintenance are inseparable; externally, network warfare forces are integrated and integrated with information warfare forces such as signal reconnaissance and electronic warfare. For example, the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command also serves as the director of the National Security Agency, and the network attack and defense are integrated with signal intelligence and reconnaissance. The Japanese Self-Defense Force has set up a special first-level command to oversee space, network, and electronic warfare affairs.
It is worth noting that foreign military forces constitute the “regular army” of cyber warfare forces, and private cybersecurity companies, technology companies, hacker organizations, etc. have also become important cyber offensive and defensive forces and have attracted much attention. The notorious “Eye of Sauron” and “Equation Group” and other hacker organizations are inextricably linked to the US military. In recent years, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela have encountered cyber attacks, all of which have the shadow of “Equation Group”. The Indian Army is also considering absorbing its rich IT talents to form a cyber warfare reserve force to further strengthen its cyber warfare capabilities.
Actively develop and build a network arsenal, and intelligent weapon systems are beginning to emerge
Cyber weapons are special weapons used for network attack and defense. They can be viruses, loopholes, denial of service attacks, phishing attacks and other offensive and defensive technologies, or network attack and defense system platforms. Anatoly Smirnov, chairman of the International Information Security Association of the Russian Federation, disclosed in 2019 that many Western countries were developing cyber weapons; the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan also made no secret of possessing cyber weapons. According to the disclosures of Snowden and WikiLeaks, U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.S. military have built a systematic offensive cyber arsenal, some of which can be called “weapons of mass destruction” in cyberspace. In 2020, Patrick Saunders, commander of the British Strategic Command, took the initiative to declare that the UK has developed a “destructive” cyber weapon, which can effectively kill the enemy’s power grid and other facilities and equipment.
In terms of network system platforms, the U.S. military has built the most complete network warfare system platform in the world, including accusation management systems such as joint network command and control and unified platform, basic systems for network warfare planning and execution such as the IKE project, and network warfare and network warfare systems such as “Shute”. A weapon system with integrated firepower. In terms of network monitoring and defense, India has developed and built system platforms such as a central monitoring system, network traffic analysis system, and network security monitoring and evaluation system.
Cyber weapons have a natural “kinship” with smart technology. At present, weapon systems in the fields of network situation monitoring, network attack and defense, and password deciphering have already taken shape in intelligentized countries in cyberspace dominant countries. With the development of artificial intelligence technology, the trend of intelligent network weapons will become more and more obvious.
Focus on enhancing the actual combat capabilities of network attack and defense, and innovate network training methods
In view of the reality and destructiveness of cyber threats, foreign militaries attach great importance to testing the security of information network systems and improving the cyber offensive and defensive capabilities of military and government agencies through cyber exercises and training activities in the context of actual combat.
In terms of participating forces, it covers the military, government agencies, reserves and civilian cyber forces. In the method mode, opponents are generally set to ensure the confrontation of the exercise. Some also innovatively use the method of offering rewards to attract hackers to “legally” attack specific target networks and help find network system defense loopholes. In terms of the training environment, actively build a network shooting range to simulate the information network environment of one’s own side and the opponent’s. The United States, Britain, Japan, Canada and NATO have all established professional cyber ranges. As the world’s largest multinational cyber exercise, NATO’s “Lock Shield” exercise simulated a country’s information network environment in 2019. The content of the drill includes responsiveness testing, defense vulnerability inspection, and election interference analysis. India regularly holds “Cyber Fortress” exercises. It is said that in the “Cyber Fortress-8” exercise organized in 2015, the Indian Army’s cyber brigade used remote penetration and other means to successfully obtain the administrator authority of a certain network system of the Indian Army, and found that 13 major categories of security vulnerabilities were identified. In addition, the U.S. military has begun to practice the integration of cyber warfare and operations in other fields. In the U.S. military’s “Schriever” exercise, the integration of space operations and cyber warfare is one of the important contents.
At present, some countries have regarded some serious cyber attacks as acts of war. As the international rules of conduct in cyberspace restrict and deter cyber attacks more and more, cyber exercises may replace real network operations and become foreign military training and upgrading. The primary path to network offensive and defensive capabilities.
Emphasis on pre-emptive offensive operations, actual combat tends to integrate deterrence and multi-domain integration
The hugeness, complexity, and fragility of the network system make network defense difficult and costly. For this reason, the United States and other countries have gradually changed their network security policy and operational thinking from the initial comprehensive defense to preemptive offensive operations, emphasizing Conduct pre-emptive offensive operations in hostile networks to eliminate potential or actual threats.
Driven by offensive thinking, cyber warfare is common in international conflicts, and the targets of attacks are no longer limited to military targets. The United States is the first country to apply cyber warfare to actual combat. In 2009, the U.S. military used the “Stuxnet” virus to carry out cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, causing more than 1,500 centrifuges to be scrapped and the Iranian nuclear process to be paused. In 2020, after the assassination of Soleimani, the U.S. military launched cyber attacks on the command and control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, missiles, and air defense systems to deter and prevent Iran from carrying out military retaliation. Of course, the idea of offensive cyber warfare does not require absolute cyber superiority. Some non-cyber powers have also proposed the idea of using asymmetric cyber capabilities to carry out preemptive attacks on the enemy’s weaknesses, and then achieve the goal of using the small to gain the big and the weak in the network game. Mandatory.
It is worth noting that in recent international conflicts, the trend of multi-domain integration in the fields of cyber warfare and firepower warfare, electromagnetic spectrum warfare, and cognitive domain warfare has become very obvious. For example, when armed conflicts broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Naka region in 2020, the two sides launched cyber offenses and defenses in cyberspace on the one hand, and on the other hand launched fierce confrontations in the cognitive domain around international and domestic public opinion, military morale, legal principles and morals.
At present, the low-intensity and ambiguous nature of cyber warfare attracts some international actors to frequently carry out cyberspace operations regardless of the consequences, and the risk of conflict escalation out of control is constantly accumulating. To this end, all countries in the world should start consultations and negotiations on international rules of conduct in cyberspace and cyber arms control as soon as possible, jointly restrict military activities in cyberspace, create a new pattern of cybersecurity, and build a community of shared future in cyberspace.
Chinese Military Exploring the Strategy of Winning Superiority in Information Warfare
來源：中國國防報
In the era of information warfare, due to changes in the mechanism of winning wars, the strategy of winning with the inferior to the superior has also changed accordingly. Under the new situation, exploring the new characteristics, new laws, and new strategies of informatization warfare to win the war with the inferior has very important practical significance for winning future wars.
Information has become the dominant factor in winning a war, and the victory of the inferior is concentrated in seizing information superiority
As information technology is widely used in the military field, informationized weapons and equipment have become the main weapons on the battlefield. Information flow will determine material flow, force flow and energy flow, and become the dominant element of combat effectiveness, penetrating every corner of the battlefield. Competing for information superiority and linking multidimensional forces such as land, sea, air, space, and electricity have become the focus of confrontation in informationized warfare. Taking the information combat system as the primary target of using troops, finding the weak parts of the opponent’s information system, concentrating on destroying them, and making the opponent’s intelligence information system and command and control system paralyzed or unable to operate normally has become an important way for the inferior equipment to defeat the strong enemy. By striking information targets, one hair can affect the whole body and even directly achieve the purpose of war.
The more the party has the advantage of information technology, the more afraid the disadvantaged party will adopt asymmetric means of confrontation. As someone pointed out: our practice of using information as the focus of operations can become our strength, but it is also easy to become a vulnerable weakness. Therefore, aim at the weaknesses and weaknesses of the powerful enemy’s informationized combat platform, concentrate elite weapons and trumpet weapons and equipment, avoid the enemy’s sharp edge, take a slanted sword, and attack its weak links, such as comprehensively using information attack, navigation countermeasures, photoelectric interference and other means to destroy enemy information Even if only one or two of the network system, reconnaissance and early warning system, command and control system, and navigation and positioning system are successful, it can disrupt its overall structure and combat order, effectively paralyze its combat system, and finally achieve the effect of four or two.
System confrontation has become the basic law of victory in war, and the superiority of the inferior is highlighted by the weakening and deprivation of the enemy’s systematic combat advantages
In informationized warfare, the integration, complementarity, and interdependence of the various services and arms have increased, and the confrontation between the combat systems of the two hostile parties has become increasingly prominent. War is no longer a confrontation of single functions between combat units, but a systemic confrontation based on the comprehensive integration of various combat units and combat elements. The overall function of the combat system has a major impact on the success or failure of a war. In the face of an enemy with systemic advantages, it is very difficult to rely on a single force and a single means to achieve victory over the superior. Whether it can weaken and deprive the combat advantages of a powerful enemy system has become a key link in information warfare to achieve victory over the superior.
The practice of several local wars in recent years has proved that the party with inferior equipment can effectively destroy the key targets of the enemy’s combat system by developing and using some advanced weapons and combining them with other weapons and equipment when there is a “generational difference” in the overall combat capability. It is entirely possible to cause a powerful enemy’s overall operational dysfunction or paralysis. The larger and more sophisticated the combat system of a strong enemy in information technology, the easier it is to expose its vulnerable side. Once it is destroyed, it will often cause serious consequences. During the Iraq war, the U.S. military was shocked by the fact that GPS precision-guided weapons lost their accuracy after being interfered by the Iraqi army’s GPS jammers. During the Kosovo War, the soldiers and civilians of Yugoslavia used flexible and diverse computer network warfare, which also caused NATO’s computer network system to be attacked and paralyzed many times.
Quick decision has become the basic requirement for winning a war, and more emphasis is placed on immediate linkage to form a local advantage over the enemy by using the inferior to win the superior
The depreciation of the space factor and the sharp increase in the value of the time factor in the informationized battlefield lead to the acceleration of the combat rhythm, the shortening of the duration of the war, and the significant enhancement of the quick decision of the war. Although the basic combat procedures and information flow have not undergone fundamental changes, the processes of discovering targets, making decisions, issuing orders, and troop actions are carried out almost simultaneously in real time. The U.S. military’s book “Awe and Fear–The Way to Quickly Conquer the Enemy” pointed out that when talking about the quick victory of information warfare: “From a technical point of view, the speed here includes the formulation of combat plans, combat determination, and deployment and use of troops. Everything requires the troops to respond quickly in the shortest possible time.” In the Afghan war, it took about 19 minutes for the U.S. military to go from the “discovery-location-aiming-attack-assessment” kill chain, while it only took 10 minutes in the 2003 Iraq war about.
At the same time, various information-based weapons can carry out rapid and deadly long-range precision strikes, making the disadvantaged party form a passive situation where they cannot be seen, relied on, grasped, or hit. In exchange for room for maneuver in battles and battles; through long-term local gathering of superior forces and annihilating the enemy, accumulating small victories into big victories, it becomes more difficult to finally realize the growth and decline of the enemy and our forces. We must pay attention to the function of network aggregation, select and deploy new quality and elite forces, adopt modular organization, building block combination, task combination and other force formation methods, use multi-dimensional distribution, network chain combat configuration, and use link cycle linkage and leapfrog Response methods such as direct linkage, synchronous parallel linkage, sequential connection linkage, etc., realize network aggregation efficiency, system linkage, and multi-dimensional response to obtain local strength advantages against the enemy.
Technological factors are becoming more and more important in war, and the victory of the inferior depends on the close integration of people and technology
Information technology, especially disruptive technology, has triggered revolutionary changes in weaponry, organizational structure, and combat styles, and has become a direct driving force for the transformation of information warfare. Information warfare relies on the combination and application advantages of weapon platforms to realize domain linkage and cross-domain control. The proportion of technology-intensive arms and new-quality combat forces continues to increase. The concept of inferior superiority is facing challenges. However, information-based weapons and equipment put forward higher requirements for the quality of personnel. The organic combination of information-based weapons and equipment and high-quality personnel has become a key factor in winning a war. When the disadvantaged party confronts a strong enemy, it is even more necessary to do more in terms of human subjective initiative. enough articles.
In the man-machine system composed of man and weapon, the scientific and technological content of weapons and equipment is increasing day by day, and the trend of intelligence is becoming more and more obvious. The political, theoretical, military and technological literacy of commanders has become the key factor for winning an information war. General Sullivan of the U.S. Army once said: “Even in the information age, it is still people who dominate war operations. Changes in technology, equipment, and force structure will not lead to the disappearance of courage, selflessness, camaraderie, and leadership. “Information warfare has not changed that people are the decisive factor in the outcome of a war. How to make full use of strengths and avoid weaknesses for the party with inferior weapons and equipment, give full play to the effective combination of people and technology, and make up for technological disadvantages has become a key factor in defeating an enemy with superior equipment.
The contest of intelligence and strategy has become an important aspect of winning a war, and the strategy of using the inferior to win the superior exists in the active role
If a weak army wants to defeat a strong enemy, simply competing in military strength is tantamount to hitting a rock with an egg – there is no advantage at all; simply competing in equipment technology is tantamount to using its own strengths to defeat the enemy’s strengths – always being passive; Competing with external support is tantamount to discarding the decisive role of internal factors-willing to seek defeat with inferiority. What ultimately depends on the inferior to the superior? Relying on the active role of self-consciousness, relying on intelligence and strategic competition, this is the fundamental factor to realize the transformation from weak to strong, and the inferior to the superior.
Subjective initiative is manifested in many aspects for “surviving the superior with the inferior”. Although the “potential” here has a certain relationship with the strength of the opposing sides, it still depends on the degree of the commander’s subjective initiative. Those who plan well gain power, and those who do not plan lose power. The second is to actively plan a series of strategies to actively seize the advantages of opportunities. War is a vigorous confrontation between two sides fighting wits and courage. If the weaker side can make a superior move and make a living in a row, it will surely win the first opportunity. The third is to actively create local advantages and actively establish overall victory. Global strength does not mean local overall superiority, and overall global weakness does not mean local overall inferiority. Concentrating forces to form local advantages will eventually break the comparison of advantages and disadvantages and lay the foundation for overall victory. The fourth is to make the best use of the situation and actively innovate and adapt tactics. Water is impermanent, and soldiers are impermanent. According to changes in the enemy’s situation, we can flexibly innovate and change our own tactics, and constantly change the situation of both the enemy and ourselves, so as to gradually provide conditions for our own side to change from weak to strong.
Chinese People’s Liberation Army Actively Responding to the Challenge of Intelligent Warfare
In recent years, the wave of intelligence has surged and has been widely used in the military field. Major countries in the world attach great importance to the construction and application of military intelligence, and various unmanned combat platforms and intelligent weapons and equipment continue to appear, and they are installed in troops and put into actual combat. In the face of the accelerated evolution of intelligent warfare, only by seizing development opportunities, actively responding to challenges, accelerating the development of military intelligence, and accelerating the forging of intelligent combat capabilities can we seize the strategic initiative of intelligent warfare and win future intelligent warfare.
Focusing on designing wars to create intelligent theory
Military theory comes from combat practice and is used to guide combat practice. Restricted by various conditions in the past, military theory research was mostly “looking backwards”, that is, summarizing battle examples to form combat guidance. With the rapid development of modern technology, especially big data, cloud computing and other disruptive technologies, the research on combat theory has got rid of the traditional follow-up and inductive reasoning mode, and has entered a new era of experimental warfare and design warfare. New disruptive technologies in the field of intelligence have opened up new space for military theory innovation. To this end, we should create a basic theory of intelligent warfare in accordance with the idea of ”proposing concepts-needs analysis-innovating theories”, and conduct in-depth research on the concept connotation, essential characteristics, war guidance, combat styles, offensive and defensive actions, winning mechanisms, etc. of intelligent warfare. Features and laws, etc.; innovate intelligent combat methods and methods, give full play to the overall effectiveness of the intelligent combat system, strengthen research on new intelligent combat methods and methods such as man-machine collaborative intelligent combat, intelligent robot combat, and intelligent unmanned swarm combat, as well as intelligent Combat command, the process and methods of intelligent combat support, etc.; focus on effectively responding to the threat of intelligent combat, and research strategies to defeat the enemy, such as intelligent interdiction warfare and intelligent disruption warfare. These theories are the cornerstone of the theoretical system of intelligent warfare. In the future, the theory of war centered on strengthening “controlling intellectual power” and competing for “algorithm-centric warfare” will most likely replace the theory of warfare centered on “network-centric warfare.”
Focus on cross-domain interconnection and explore intelligent forms
The military organization is the link connecting military technology and combat theory, and the lever to exert the overall combat effectiveness of the military. Modern combat places more emphasis on “elite combat under the support of a large system”, that is, supported by the joint combat system, “fine front and strong back”, according to the idea of ”integrated design, modular formation, and combined application”, the formation is more precise and more accurate. The powerful combat module enables the maximum release of combat energy. The organization of the future intelligent warfare system will be based on strategies, campaigns, and tactics at different levels and different arms and arms, and will form different types and purposes of small, multi-functional and intelligent new joint combat forces. According to the requirements of reconfigurability, scalability and self-adaptation, the intelligentized combat network can seamlessly link and flexibly organize individual weapon platforms according to changes in the enemy situation and battlefield environment, and then aggregate them to form System advantages, forming a combat module integrating offense and defense. The intelligent new combat force system is a comprehensive product of the development of artificial intelligence technology, the formation of new combat capabilities, and the evolution of war forms. new growth point.
Focus on the integration of man and machine to develop intelligent weapons With the development of information technology and intelligent technology, whoever can win in the field of artificial intelligence is expected to have the initiative in future military confrontation. We should focus on the dual needs of intelligent warfare system operations and intelligent weapon equipment system construction, do a good job in top-level design and overall planning, compile a road map for the development of intelligent weapon equipment systems, and develop high, medium, low-end, low-end, and Large, medium and small, long-range and short-range, covering space fields such as land, sea, air, space, electricity, and networks, and an intelligent unmanned combat equipment system that matches combat and support, and establishes a “human-led, machine-assisted, mixed formation, joint “Operation” manned-unmanned cooperation system, enhance the system integration of various military arms and various intelligent weapons and equipment such as operations and support. Intelligent unmanned combat system is a new trend in the development of future war equipment. Its core is to aim at the requirements of “zero casualties”, “full coverage” and “fast response” in future wars, and make full use of new theories, new materials, new processes, new energy, and new technology development achievements in two aspects: man-machine collaboration and autonomous action. Continuously make breakthroughs, build a three-level unmanned equipment sys
tem of strategy, campaign, and tactics, build a new type of intelligent unmanned division on a large scale, and realize the systematic and coordinated operations of unmanned combat systems. At the same time, we should focus on the needs of unmanned and anti-unmanned, intelligent and anti-intelligent operations, and focus on the development of anti-enemy intelligent unmanned combat weaponry systems to ensure effective intelligent unmanned offensive and defensive confrontation with the enemy.
Focus on ability compound innovation intelligent training
The professional division of labor in modern warfare is becoming more and more detailed, and the entire combat system is becoming more and more complex, which promotes the transition from manpower-intensive to technology-intensive operations, requiring combatants not only to have good physical fitness, but also to have good technical literacy and intellectual advantages , to meet the needs of different combat missions, combat environments, and combat opponents. Military intelligence puts forward higher requirements on the quality of people. Correspondingly, intelligent military talents should have the characteristics of group talents, sophisticated skills, complex knowledge, innovative thinking, and intelligent decision-making. Intelligent warfare will be a war carried out by the combination of man and machine, and the combat force with the intelligent unmanned combat system as the main body will play an increasingly important role. The effective combination of high-quality personnel and intelligent weapons can maximize combat effectiveness. It is necessary to adapt to the new characteristics of the intelligent warfare force system, innovate and develop the concept of intelligent training, and explore a new model for the generation of intelligent warfare combat power. At present, artificial intelligence technology can create a more “real” weapon operation experience and battlefield environment, and can realistically interpret the combat process, assist decision-making and command, and evaluate combat concepts. To this end, adapt to the new characteristics of the intelligent warfare force system, focus on the improvement of the self-command, self-control, and self-combat capabilities of the intelligent combat system, and make full use of the characteristics of the intelligent system that can self-game and self-growth, forming a special strategy for intelligent warfare. Combat system training system, training environment and training mechanism, strengthen “human” control of intelligent system training, and explore a new training mode with “machine” as the main object. In this way, the intelligent combat system can obtain a leap in combat capability after short-term self-intensive training, so as to cope with the test of disorder, complexity and uncertainty in the future combat environment.
Focusing on Accurate and Efficient Improvement of Guarantee Mode
Intelligent battlefields and the degree of realization of comprehensive support for joint operations are important factors that directly affect the generation of combat effectiveness of troops. The development of intelligent technology will surely trigger a revolutionary change in the construction of the joint combat support system and realize intelligent comprehensive support. Comprehensive support is the foundation of combat effectiveness and a bridge that transforms national economic strength into military combat capability. With the continuous maturity of the Internet of Things technology, intelligent warfare puts more emphasis on integrated guarantee, precise guarantee, and distribution guarantee, that is, the required amount is delivered to the required place at the required time. Relying on the integrated support system, the dispersedly deployed support forces and resources are grouped according to functional modules such as supplies, supplies, maintenance, ammunition, and management, so that they cover all areas of combat service support. Relying on visualization technology, the entire process of combat supply is tracked and mastered According to the current situation, according to the real-time development of the battle situation, information control, reception and distribution of personnel flow and material flow are carried out to achieve point-to-point direct support. Through the use of technologies such as the Internet of Things, drones, smart cars, remote surgery, and 3D printing, upgrade and build an intelligent after-installation support system covering intelligent warehousing, intelligent delivery, intelligent maintenance, and intelligent medical treatment, so as to realize automatic, fast and accurate supply of after-load materials on the battlefield , Rapid diagnosis and maintenance of equipment failures, timely rescue of battlefield personnel, changing passive support into active service, and improving the overall support efficiency and effectiveness of aftermarket.
Focus on both military and
civilian use and deepen intelligent integration
Breakthroughs in the core and key technologies of artificial intelligence are the “country’s most important weapon” to deal with the threats and challenges of intelligent warfare. The rapid development of intelligent technology has become an accelerator of military intelligence. In the information age, the boundary between military technology and civilian technology is becoming more and more blurred, and the transferability is becoming stronger and stronger. Actively establish a military-civilian collaborative innovation mechanism, continuously strengthen the driving force for the innovation and development of intelligent core technologies, build an open industry-university-research collaborative innovation system for the whole society, plan forward and support investment in core cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, and give full play to the innovation power of the entire society. Promote the rapid and sustainable development of military intelligence. Accelerate technological breakthroughs in key areas. It is necessary to focus on relevant key technical fields and break the technical bottleneck that restricts the development of military intelligence. Strengthen research on the basic support fields of military intelligence, such as military big data, military Internet of Things, etc.; start from combat requirements, strengthen research on intelligent application technologies in various operational elements, especially intelligent command and decision-making, intelligent weapon platforms, Research on intelligent battlefield perception and intelligent countermeasure technology. The research and development of the core key technology of military intelligence not only requires interdisciplinary and cross-field collaborative innovation, but also integrates the development of social intelligence and military intelligence. Intelligent technology is quickly embedded in operational elements and operational processes. To accelerate the development of military intelligence, we should explore the rules of cultivating relevant talents, make full use of military and local education resources, increase the intensity of training relevant talents, and provide solid intellectual support and talent guarantee for promoting the construction of military intelligence.
Chinese Military Higher Education in the Age of Intelligent Warfare
“Military academies are born for war and built for war.” At the opening ceremony of the 2019 military academy principal training, Chairman Xi proposed the military education policy for the new era, pointing out the direction for the military academies to cultivate high-quality, professional new military talents. At present, the form of war is accelerating towards informationization and intelligence. What kind of soldiers are needed to win future intelligent wars, and how military higher education can cultivate talents suitable for intelligent warfare are major issues before us.
The form of war is accelerating towards intelligent development
The form of war is the expression form and state of war history staged mainly marked by the technical attributes of the main battle weapon. So far, after experiencing cold weapon wars, hot weapon wars, and mechanized warfare, the form of warfare is accelerating its development towards informationized and intelligentized warfare. The increasingly widespread application of advanced technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and brain science in the military field is becoming an important driver of the new military revolution, giving rise to new forms of unmanned, autonomous, and intelligent warfare, changing the Traditional war winning mechanism. In 2014, a foreign military think tank released a research report titled “20YY: War in the Robot Era”, arguing that a storm of military transformation marked by intelligent armies, autonomous equipment, and unmanned warfare is approaching. Platforms, information systems and decision support systems, as well as new weapons such as directed energy, hypersonics, bionics, genes, and nanometers, will initially establish an intelligent combat system by 2035, and will develop to an advanced stage by 2050, fully realizing combat platforms, information Systems, command and control are intelligentized and even unmanned, new weapons such as bionics, genes, and nanometers are on the battlefield, and the combat space is further expanded to biological space, nanospace, and intelligent space.
In recent years, with the continuous deepening of research on the human brain, the brain-computer interface technology is becoming more and more mature. In the future, the information exchange between human beings and the outside world will no longer be limited to the senses, and the direct information exchange between the brain and the outside world can also be realized through chips. People and people, people and things are fully interconnected, and human beings may surpass the Internet and the Internet of Things and enter the era of intelligence supported by the Internet of Brains. In the era of the Internet of Brains, soldiers’ brains are directly connected to combat platforms, information systems, and decision-making support systems, and decisions are made with the assistance of technologies such as quantum computing and cloud platforms. Information and mind merge. Some domestic experts believe that under the influence of artificial intelligence technology, the winning mechanism of future wars will change from “information dominance, system confrontation, precise strikes, and joint victory” in information warfare to “intelligence dominance, independent confrontation, and traceability” in intelligent warfare. Following the transformation of “strike, cloud and brain winning”, following matter, energy, and information, cloud intelligence that integrates man and machine has become the key to determining the outcome of a war. This transformation of the form of intelligent warfare is accelerating, and any hesitation may bring unimaginable consequences.
But it should be noted that no matter how the war develops, people are always the most fundamental element. The form of intelligent warfare will lead to changes in the functions and roles of soldiers, and will put forward higher requirements for the ability and quality of soldiers. Cognitive ability may surpass knowledge and skills and become the core ability of soldiers.
Intelligent warfare requires the upgrading and reconstruction of the comprehensive quality of soldiers.
According to the talent growth cycle, soldiers who are currently receiving higher education will become the main force of combat training in more than 10 years, and will also become the first main force to meet the challenges of intelligent warfare. At present, there are still some deficiencies in the design of personnel training goals in our military’s higher education, and insufficient attention is paid to the ability to adapt to the ever-changing intelligent battlefield in the future. There is still a certain gap between the personnel training objectives and the needs of intelligent warfare. On July 23, 2020, when Chairman Xi inspected the Air Force Aviation University, he emphasized that we must persist in cultivating people with morality, educating people for war, strengthening m
ilitary spirit education, strengthening fighting spirit, and comprehensively strengthening the ideological and political, military, scientific and cultural aspects of pilot students. , Physical and psychological quality foundation. To implement President Xi’s important instructions and meet the needs of future intelligent warfare, it is urgent to build a higher-level military talent training goal with thinking as the core, and accelerate the upgrading and reconstruction of military personnel’s comprehensive quality.
Intelligent warfare is a complex giant system integrating multiple fields. Its intelligence-based characteristics and iterative and changeable development trend are changing the role of soldiers in warfare. Soldiers may gradually move from the foreground of the war to behind the scenes, from direct face-to-face combat to man-machine collaborative combat, from front-line charging to back-end planning and design of war. In order to be competent in man-machine coordination, planning and designing wars and other functional roles, in addition to ideological, political, physical and psychological requirements, in terms of military profession and scientific culture, soldiers should focus on improving the following five aspects of knowledge, ability and quality: First, multidisciplinary integration Master the core principles of multiple disciplines related to intelligent warfare, such as nature, military, cognitive psychology, and network intelligence, and be able to integrate knowledge across disciplines to guide military practice; the second is strong cognitive ability, with logical thinking, judgment Thinking and system thinking ability, able to use scientific methods to analyze and reason to solve combat problems; the third is human-machine collaboration ability, deeply grasp the characteristics and laws of intelligent warfare, skillfully use combat platforms, command and control systems, and decision support systems, and be able to control diversified intelligent weapons The fourth is the ability to innovate, with a keen sense of technology and strong creativity, able to grasp the frontiers of science and technology, innovate combat styles, and grasp the laws of war development; the fifth is the ability to self-growth, to be able to accurately recognize oneself , rationally plan military careers, freely use information means to acquire new knowledge, new technologies, and new methods, constantly improve the knowledge structure, enhance cognitive ability, and better adapt to the complex and changeable military revolution development.
Identifying the Emphasis Points of Military Higher Education Reform
At present, the superposition of informatization and intelligentization has brought greater complexity to the personnel training work of military academies. It is necessary to meet the actual needs of informatization operations and at the same time lay the foundation for adapting to intelligent warfare. We should focus on The following work.
Restructure the curriculum system. The curriculum system supports the formation of talent knowledge structure. In order to cultivate military talents that meet the needs of intelligent warfare and achieve the training goals of military majors, science and culture, it is necessary to break the practice of designing a curriculum system with a single major as the background and establish a curriculum system of “general education + direction”. The general education course is based on the existing natural science and public courses, adding courses such as mathematical logic, mathematical modeling, critical thinking, network foundation, artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, system engineering, etc., to establish cross-field and interdisciplinary courses System, expand the knowledge of students, build a knowledge structure urgently needed for intelligent warfare, and lay a broad knowledge foundation for their lifelong growth. Orientation courses are to establish a discipline and professional direction, set up a vertical curriculum system of mathematical science, professional foundation, and professional positions, build a solid professional background, and cultivate students’ ability to use professional theories to solve complex combat training problems. The curriculum system of “General Education + Orientation” helps build a “T”-shaped knowledge structure and meets the needs of military personnel to adapt to diverse and intelligent warfare.
Deepen classroom reform. Educational neuroscience believes that education is the reshaping of students’ brains, and the classroom is the main position for reshaping students’ neural networks, especially for the formation of high-level cognitive abilities required for intelligent warfare. Continuously deepening classroom reform is the key to military Critical tasks for higher education today. It should be seen that a classroom with only knowledge and understanding is far from a good classroom. All human behaviors, though
ts and emotions are all controlled by the brain, and every knowledge, thought and emotion corresponds to a specific neural network of the brain. Therefore, classroom reform should center on students’ learning, follow the cognitive laws of the human brain, and Attract and maintain attention as the starting point, establish a scientific thinking framework, and mobilize students to think proactively. Usually, teaching methods aimed at higher-level abilities have a general model—problem-driven heuristic teaching, and the commonly used problem-based teaching methods, project-based teaching methods, and inquiry-based teaching methods all belong to this model. Therefore, the main path to promote classroom reform is to develop unknown, novel, and interesting questions and stories for students, design a thinking framework that points to logical reasoning, critical thinking, reflection, creativity, and learning ability, and inspire students under the guidance of the framework. Active thinking, supplemented by the output process of speaking and writing, finally achieves the goal of internalizing knowledge understanding and forming high-level abilities.
Promote comprehensive education. Modern educational theory not only regards the classroom as an important position of education, but also regards all time and space outside the classroom as an important resource for cultivating students. The time and space outside the classroom not only support classroom teaching and promote the formation of knowledge and ability, but also an important place to cultivate non-intellectual ability. Colleges and universities should make full use of these time and space, clarify specific training objectives, focus on going deep into the army, close to actual combat, highlighting practicality and creativity, and scientifically design education and training programs. Focus on giving full play to the advantages of military academies in management and education, explore the establishment of a student management model, and promote the cultivation of students’ leadership and management capabilities; continue to enrich the second classroom, build an innovative platform, create more opportunities for independent practice, and improve students’ innovation capabilities; make full use of various Large-scale activities to cultivate students’ competition awareness and teamwork ability; strengthen the construction of management cadres, improve scientific management and training capabilities, and effectively guide students to carry out time management, goal management, emotional management, psychological adjustment, habit formation, etc., to help students improve self-management and self-learning ability.
All in all, education is a systematic project. The above are only three aspects to break through the shortcomings of talent training in the era of intelligence. To truly solve the problem, military academies need to carry out systematic reforms, such as strategic planning, quality management, personnel quality, teaching conditions, etc. All aspects can effectively support the achievement of the goal of personnel training, and this requires us to continuously explore and innovate, continuously improve the level of running schools and educating people, and strive to create a new situation in the construction and development of military academies.
Chinese Military Perspective on the Evolution of the Winning Mechanisms of Intelligent Warfare
Military theorists have often said that victory tends to smile to those who can foresee changes in the character of warfare, rather than to those who wait for changes to occur before adapting. In recent years, disruptive technologies represented by artificial intelligence have developed rapidly and are widely used in the military field, accelerating the evolution of warfare to intelligence, and correspondingly, the concept of warfare is also undergoing changes. Only by discovering changes in time, actively responding to changes, and actively adapting to changes can we be invincible in future wars.
From “fighting the weak with the strong” to “controlling the clumsy with wisdom”
“The strong win the weak and the weak lose” is a law of victory in war with certain universality. Even those battles in which the weak defeated the strong often had to form a strength advantage against the enemy at a local and specific period of time in order to truly win. In the era of intelligent warfare, the contribution rate of intelligence superiority to combat effectiveness is much higher than that of other factors.
In the confrontation of intelligent warfare, human intelligence widely penetrates into the combat field and is transplanted into weapon systems. Global multi-dimensional and various types of intelligent combat platforms can quickly couple combat forces, build a combat system according to mission requirements, and independently implement coordinated operations. After the end, it quickly returned to the standby state, showing the trend of intelligence and autonomy. The side with a higher and stronger level of intelligence can better develop and use the mechanism of “controlling stupidity with wisdom”, and even design wars based on this, dominate the development of the battle situation, and win the final victory. It should also be noted that in the era of intelligent warfare, there are likely to be multiple stages of development from low to high. Try to keep yourself at an advanced stage, and attack your opponent so that it is at a low-dimensional stage. use.
From “destroying power” to “destroying cognition”
With the accelerated evolution of warfare to intelligence, the combat space has gradually expanded from the physical domain and the information domain to the cognitive domain, from the tangible battlefield to the invisible battlefield. The cognitive space composed of people’s spiritual and psychological activities has become a new combat space. Different from the main purpose of destroying the enemy’s vital forces in traditional warfare, intelligent warfare will pay more attention to weakening the enemy’s morale, disintegrating the enemy’s will, and destroying the enemy’s cognition.
Through the intelligent analysis of the opponent’s personality preferences, psychological characteristics, and decision-making habits, deterrent information can be “tailored” in a targeted manner, and the advantages of cutting-edge technologies such as intelligence can be used to show the opponent’s powerful strength in a vivid way, so that anxiety, suspicion, etc. , panic and other emotions continue to ferment inside it, which eventually leads to its self-defeating. Known as the “new oil”, big data not only enriches intelligence sources, but also becomes an important “weapon” that acts on the opponent’s cognition. By processing big data and deliberately “leaking” it to the opponent, it will create a new “fog of war” for it, and make it fall into a situation of cognitive confusion. In an intelligent war, the game of struggle will be more intense, and the party with a cognitive advantage will be ahead of the opponent, and it will be easier to grasp the initiative and opportunities.
From “people-oriented” to “human-machine collaboration”
In traditional warfare, the organization and use of military power are dominated by people. With the widespread application of intelligent technology, the proportion of unmanned equipment continues to increase. In intelligent warfare, combat tasks will be completed by man-machine collaboration, and the two will achieve organic integration and complement each other’s advantages. The third “offset strategy” proposed by the foreign military regards human-machine cooperation as a key technology for key development, and its successively proposed concepts such as “loyal wingman” are also aimed at exploring the realization of manned/unmanned coordinated operations. It is foreseeable that human-machine collaboration will play an important role in future warfare.
Using unmanned reconnaissance forces to carry out three-dimensional and multi-dimensional battlefield situational awareness can provide real-time intelligence support for manned combat forces; use unmanned platforms to carry relay loads to continuously provide communication relay support for manned combat forces; use
unmanned combat forces to go deep into the front battlefield, It can attract the enemy to attack, force the enemy to expose its position, and provide target guidance and fire support for manned combat forces; use unmanned transport equipment to provide supplies for the front line, which can improve the efficiency of logistics support, reduce transportation costs, and reduce unnecessary casualties. With the assistance of artificial intelligence, manned combat forces and unmanned combat forces will realize scientific division of labor and reasonable collocation in terms of quantity, scale and function, so as to maximize the overall effectiveness.
From “eat the small with the big” to “eat the slow with the fast”
In traditional warfare, it is often necessary to make up for shortcomings in equipment performance and other aspects by increasing the number of troops. The rapid development of military intelligence has greatly improved the speed of information transmission and the accuracy of weapon strikes, greatly reduced the time for reconnaissance and early warning, intelligence processing, command decision-making, firepower strikes, and damage assessment, and accelerated the OODA kill chain cycle. , making “find and destroy” possible.
Hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, microwave weapons, electromagnetic pulse weapons and other new rapid-kill weapons have further pushed the rhythm of war to “second kill”. In the Gulf War, the loop time of the OODA loop required 3 days; in the Iraq War, the loop time has been shortened to less than 10 minutes; and in the Syrian War, the loop has almost achieved near real-time. In intelligent warfare, the use of an unmanned platform for surveillance and attack to quickly target high-value targets such as the enemy’s core command post and high-level commanders will cause the opponent to suffer heavy losses before they can react, and even face the danger of paralysis. It can be seen that victory does not necessarily favor the side with a large military force, and the side that moves quickly and accurately will be more likely to win the battlefield. According to statistics, the reaction time required by artificial intelligence to respond to changes in the battlefield is more than 400 times faster than that of humans. In the face of the rapidly changing battlefield situation, people will be more inclined to use artificial intelligence technology to realize the adaptive planning and autonomous decision-making of the command and control system, so that the command and control mode will be changed from “people on the loop” to “people outside the loop”, so as to reduce the While shouldering the burden of commanding personnel, it can improve combat efficiency and the success rate of mission execution.
From “Integrated Winning” to “Cluster Winning”
The traditional concept of equipment development is to invest a lot of money in the research and development of highly integrated high-precision weapon platforms, in order to achieve dimensionality reduction strikes on the enemy by virtue of intergenerational advantages and performance advantages in war. However, developing and deploying a multi-functional high-end platform not only takes a lot of time and money, but when multiple software and hardware modules are integrated into a single weapon platform, there may be incompatibility among them. Once the platform is destroyed, it will cause heavy losses. The military application of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence has led to the rapid development of unmanned swarms. Unmanned swarms have the advantages of large scale, low comprehensive cost, and decentralization. Unmanned platforms coordinate with each other, divide labor and cooperate, and can make independent decisions and carry out combat tasks in an organized manner. Even if some unmanned platforms are destroyed, it will not affect the overall operation. efficacy. Combat concepts such as “decision-making center warfare” and “mosaic warfare” proposed by foreign militaries focus on the use of unmanned swarms to complete combat tasks. In intelligent warfare, by dispersing functions such as reconnaissance and surveillance, information communication, command and control, and fire strikes into a large number of single-function unmanned combat units, a highly robust and highly elastic “kill net” is constructed, and then Adjusting the combination method will make it emerge a powerful group intelligence, creating great uncertainty for the opponent, and then trap the opponent in the judgment link of the OODA loop, unable to make effective decisions. In addition, due to the large number of unmanned swarms, the opponent’s detection, tracking, and interception capabilities can be quickly saturated, and the opponent has to face the dilemma of fortification failure because it cannot destroy all unmanned platforms in the swarm.
From “Military Dominance” to “Multiple Mixture”
Traditional warfare mainly relies on violent means to make the enemy submit to one’s own will, and usually has a strong war intensity, with clear boundaries between peacetime and wartime. With the continuous expansion of the field of military struggle to new fields such as space, network, and intelligence, and the increasingly prominent role of economic, cultural, diplomatic, and legal means in warfare, intelligent warfare will be carried out in many fields represented by the “grey zone”. Developed in the form of “multi-pronged approach”. The intensity of war may be weakened, and the boundary between peace and war will become more blurred. Whether in 2019, half of Saudi Arabia’s oil fields were attacked by drones and half of its oil production was shut down, or in 2021, the largest oil pipeline in the United States was hit by cyber attacks and caused a large-scale oil shortage. The far-reaching impact of various new attack methods cannot be ignored underestimate.
With the development and maturity of intelligent technology, the comprehensive use of various means to attack opponents’ industrial, transportation, financial, communication, energy, medical and other facilities and networks will become more common. The threshold of intelligent warfare will show a downward trend, and the warring parties may adopt the method of undeclared war to launch a hybrid war that integrates economic warfare, diplomatic warfare, cyber warfare, public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, legal warfare, etc., so that the opponent is exhausted. Handle.
From “actual combat inspection” to “experimental exercise”
Under traditional conditions, due to the lack of scientific simulation and evaluation tools, the true capabilities of the army can only be tested in actual combat. Under intelligent conditions, using virtual reality technology can create a virtual scene with a strong sense of three-dimensional and realism based on the actual battlefield environment and task background. This scene can not only restore objective things such as weapons and equipment from multiple dimensions such as sound, appearance, and performance, but also simulate various severe weather such as heavy fog, heavy rain, and snowstorm, and display the terrain, meteorology, hydrology, etc. of the battlefield in a visualized form. Electromagnetic, nuclear and other information, close to the real situation of the battlefield.
Set the imaginary enemy in the virtual environment according to the characteristics of the enemy in reality, and carry out intelligent simulation of the possible trend of the battle situation, so that officers and soldiers can “experience” the war in virtual reality several times before the official war, so as to improve the equipment performance, The rhythm of the war and the situation of the enemy and the enemy are all clear, and it will be easier to perform realistic tasks. Before the outbreak of the Iraq War, the U.S. military secretly developed a computer game that simulated the combat environment in Baghdad. Among the personnel dispatched to Iraq to perform missions, the survival rate of those trained in the game was as high as 90%. With the continuous enrichment and improvement of data collected in reality, the construction of virtual battlefields will be more realistic, the prediction of the battlefield situation will be more accurate, and the comprehensive evaluation of exercises will be more credible. If the outcome of the war is known in advance, there may be a situation where “surrender the enemy” without a fight or a small fight.
Chinese Military to focus on the integration and development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence
Adhere to the integration and development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence
——Conscientiously study, publicize and implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
■Chinese People’s Liberation Army Unit 66011
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that we should adhere to the integrated development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence. This important exposition endows the modernization of national defense and the armed forces with new connotations of the times, and further points out the development direction and path for accelerating the modernization of national defense and the armed forces. We must seize the opportunity, based on the status quo, insist on promoting the integrated development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence with systematic thinking, coordinate the development of various fields, especially key areas, realize the positive interaction of the three, and promote the overall improvement of national defense and military modernization.
Engels pointed out: “Human beings fight in the same way as they produce.” At present, the new military revolution in the world is developing rapidly, the degree of informatization in modern warfare is constantly improving, and the characteristics of intelligence are becoming increasingly apparent. Especially under the influence of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, the concepts, elements and methods of winning war are undergoing major changes. Judging from the recent local wars and armed conflicts in the world, a large number of high-tech weapons and equipment have been used in actual combat, and intelligent technology, unmanned equipment, and data information have become new growth points for combat effectiveness. In the face of increasingly fierce military competition, only by standing at the forefront of war and technology, and adhering to the integration of mechanization, information, and intelligence, can we seize the opportunity and win the initiative in military strategic competition.
“Everything must come, and it is a matter of course.” Mechanization, informatization, and intelligence are superimposed, interpenetrated, and mutually supported. Among them, mechanization is the material basis and carrier for the development of informatization and intelligence; informatization plays a connecting role between mechanization and intelligence; intelligence represents advanced combat effectiveness and is the development direction of future military construction. Without the previous “transformation” as the premise and foundation, there would be no emergence and development of the latter “transformation”.
Adhering to the integration and development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence is in line with the reality of our military construction and development, and is the only way for the modernization of national defense and the military in the future. Our army has basically achieved mechanization, and the construction of informatization has made significant progress but has not yet been completed. If the intelligentization is carried out after completing the informatization step by step, it will open up a new generation gap with the armed forces of developed countries; if the construction focus is fully shifted to intelligentization, it is unrealistic to expect to be in place in one step.
Science and technology are the core combat capability and the most active and revolutionary factor in military development. The key to adhering to the integrated development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence lies in promoting technological innovation. We should vigorously implement the strategy of strengthening the army through science and technology, actively promote self-reliance and self-improvement in high-level science and technology, accelerate the breakthrough of key core technologies, accelerate the development of strategic, cutting-edge, and disruptive technologies, and realize the transformation from following and running to leading and running as soon as possible. Persist in seeking combat effectiveness from scientific and technological innovation, improve scientific and technological cognition, innovation, and application capabilities, speed up the resolution of “stuck neck” problems, and firmly grasp the lifeline of our army’s development in our own hands.
Wars change with the times, and preparations for wars should not be conservative or rigid. To promote war preparations in the new era, we must focus on winning the new requirements of information-based and intelligent warfare. The construction of our army’s combat effectiveness has accelerated transformation, overall reshaping, and leapfrog development to ensure that it can attack and defend freely and win opportunities in future wars.
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized that we should adhere to the integrated development of mechanization, informationization and intelligence. From the perspective of the relationship between mechanization, informatization and intelligence, mechanization is the foundation of informatization, and intelligence is the sublimation of informatization. Without mechanization, there will be no informatization, and without sufficient informatization, it is impossible to achieve a major breakthrough in intelligence. At present, to vigorously promote military intelligence, we must first lay a solid foundation for informatization construction, and strive to improve the level of army informatization.
Lay a solid material foundation. Make bricks without straw. In order to shorten the “system gap” with powerful enemies, informatization construction should closely follow missions and tasks, keep up with cutting-edge technology, do a good job in top-level design, and promote peacetime and wartime integration. First, upgrade and improve various information systems. It is necessary to focus on the construction of the command and control center, use the information infrastructure as a platform, coordinate the construction of sub-systems and the linkage construction of various systems, promote the construction of command and control with all elements and a system, and realize the integration of information networks in various sub-domains, command and control real-time. Second, build and use the combat database well. In accordance with the principle of “integration of peacetime and wartime, overall planning, and classified implementation”, a comprehensive operational database will be established to achieve information sharing, data support, and decision-making assistance, and “information flow” to support the “chain of command.” Again, a backup mobile command post is preset. Actively learn from the beneficial practices of foreign militaries, vigorously strengthen civil air defense projects, and form a mobile command capability with multi-point layout, dynamic and static complementarity, and rapid deployment.
Build a strong team. Building a strong information force team is an important guarantee for winning an informationized local war with intelligent features. On the whole, we should focus on cultivating four types of talents: First, information command talents. Front-line mid-level and senior commanders should study information and data like they study soldiers, study the construction of information systems like they study the breakthroughs of battles, and study the use of electromagnetic spectrum like they study the performance of ammunition. The second is information warfare personnel. Cultivate a group of intelligent staff, combat planning, cognitive operations and other talents who are competent in information-based operations. The third is information security personnel. Focusing on the personnel of the information assurance department and the information assurance operation and maintenance professional technical team as the main target, continue to increase professional training efforts to improve network management, system use, inspection and maintenance capabilities. The fourth is information research and development personnel. Take the method of inviting in and going out, let go of the burden and hand over tasks, cultivate a group of expert technical talents with strong system research and development capabilities, establish a mobile station for high-end informatization talents, and form a “not for me, but for me” “A virtuous circle.
Change the concept of command. Modern warfare is all about the system, and joint combat command is a key part of it. In order to cope with the challenges of real threats, it is necessary to establish a new concept of command that is compatible with future warfare. The first is to firmly establish the concept of integrated command. Overcome the narrow command concept of a single service and arms, comprehensively coordinate multi-dimensional battlefield operations such as land, sea, air, space, electricity, and network, comprehensively integrate various combat elements, and effectively improve the combat effectiveness of overall and joint victory. The second is to firmly establish the concept of digital command. Transform from extensive to precise command, specify and refine task division, force use, time-space division, and target determination, standardize the command procedures, command methods, and command content of joint combat forces, and integrate reconnaissance intelligence, weapons Platforms, command and control, etc. are networked and real-time, shortening the command process and improving command timeliness. The third is to firmly establish the concept of intelligent command. Actively explore the systematic application of artificial intelligence technology, accelerate the development and application of new technologies such as intelligent decision-making, digital twins, big data, and cloud computing, improve the level of complex information processing on the battlefield, and enable commanders to control combat units and various weapons with the support of intelligent cloud brains. Platform mission command.
Promote innovative practices. In order to adapt to changes in technology, changes in warfare, and changes in opponents, we should speed up the construction of the “three systems” to win the information war. The first is to innovate the tactical system. In-depth research on the real tactics of defending against enemy information attacks, resisting enemy information interference, and counterattacking enemy information under the circumstances of all-round information strikes and hard fire destruction by powerful enemies, and strive to achieve precise control of the enemy. The second is to innovate the training system. Focusing on powerful enemies and combat missions, set up an information warfare environment, conduct in-depth research on topics such as command coordination, tactical application, system construction, and comprehensive support, and promote actual combat deployment and application. The third is the innovation management system. Adhere to the integration of peacetime and wartime management and the combination of virtual reality and real situation, establish a demand traction mechanism led by war, a plan-led mechanism, and an inspection and evaluation mechanism to create independent and controllable industrial chains, supply chains, and guarantee chains to ensure that “peacetime management” and “wartime management” “Use” seamless connection to help the continuous improvement of informationized combat capabilities.
Chinese Spying Operations – Games Chinese Spooks Play
From 國家安全部 ‘Guójiā ānquán bù’ to 新華社 ‘Xinhua’, how China’s espionage network operates in shadows.
China has systemically set up one of the quietest but most lethal espionage networks across the world.
As the world continues to debate over the spy balloons allegedly sent by China for espionage in the United States, probably it is missing the big picture. The real threat to global security comes from China’s spy network which is a complex web of many agencies, most of whom have successfully remained in the shadows. This multipart series would unravel the lesser known as well the unknown details about the Chinese espionage network.
The Chinese spy network has successfully remained in the shadows for decades. The Chinese Communist Party had built its spy network much before it came to power in China in 1949 turning a republic into a communist dictatorship. Since then, China has systematically set up one of the quietest but one of the most lethal espionage networks across the world.
The information regarding the Chinese spy network is scant and so scattered that it makes it difficult for even keen China watchers to paint the big and the real picture.
Ministry of State for Security
Ministry of State for Security (MSS) is China’s premier intelligence agency. It is also known as 國家安全部 ‘Guójiā ānquán bù’. MSS is largely responsible for operations outside China. The domestic intelligence and surveillance is looked after by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). In addition, Chinese defence forces have their own intelligence agencies which conduct operations all over the globe.
Peter Mattis, one of the foremost authorities on Chinese intelligence operations, explains the Chinese military intelligence network (A Guide to Chinese Intelligence Operations, August 18, 2015), “Within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), intelligence organizations fall under the General Staff Department (the Second and Third Departments, or, respectively, China’s DIA and NSA equivalents); the General Political Department for intelligence and covert influence operations; the PLA Navy, Air Force, and Second Artillery headquarters; and technical reconnaissance bureaus in the military regions. Much of the military intelligence infrastructure is based in China, but defence attachés and clandestine collectors do operate abroad, including from the service intelligence elements.”
New China News Agency (Xinhua)
Founded in 1931 by the Chinese Communist Party, Xinhua is the official news agency of China and a major facilitator for China’s intelligence gathering. According to an investigative report in Greek media outlet Pentapostagma published in April 2021, “Xinhua is primarily the eyes, ears, and voice of China. It is one of the important arms of the Chinese Intelligence agency in gathering information. Its prime objective is to promote positive news/narrative about CCP leadership/Chinese government and to marginalize, demonize, or entirely suppress anti-CCP voices, incisive political commentary and exposes that present the Chinese Government/CCP leadership in a negative light. It owns more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines and prints in eight languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic and Japanese It has established 107 bureaus in foreign countries including eight sub offices or editorial offices in Hong Kong, New York, Mexico, Nairobi, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, and Rio de Janeiro and currently employs more than 10,000 people.”
The report explained the standard operating procedure of gathering intelligence by this Chinese agency which has been operating in India also for several years, “Xinhua covers all news and developments/events in foreign countries which have meaning, or which could be of any significance for China. It then forwards reports/articles to China’s Ministry of State Security which directly handles the information inflow from Xinhua. The reports/articles are uploaded in a secured web system. Those that contain intelligence value are treated as classified and forwarded to CCP leadership for their consumption. Xinhua journalists are trained to be able to identify news/articles that are suitable for the CCP leaders and not for the public.”
According to this investigative report, “The agency (Xinhua) maintains a huge database of experts across the world and contacts favorable pro-Chinese contacts/assets in foreign countries and forwards their articles/reports to concerned departments back in Beijing.”
United Front Work Department (UFWD)
Set up in 1942, UFWD is the blue-eyed boy of the Communist Party Chinese (CPC). President Xi Jinping has further strengthened it ever since he came to power in 2012 and now it plays a significant role in China’s overall espionage network as well foreign policy framework. According to a research report published in August 2018 by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, “The United Front strategy uses a range of methods to influence overseas Chinese communities, foreign governments, and other actors to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies.”
‘Several official and quasi-official entities conduct overseas activities guided or funded by the United Front including Chinese government and military organizations, cultural and “friendship” associations, and overseas academic groups such as Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) and Confucius Institutes. The UFWD also oversees influence operations targeting Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau that aim to suppress independence movements, undermine local identity, and promote support for Beijing’s political system.
In all these cases, United Front work serves to promote Beijing’s preferred global narrative, pressure individuals living in free and open societies to self-censor and avoid discussing issues unfavorable to the CPC and harass or undermine groups critical of Beijing’s policies.’
Ryan Fedasiuk, a research Analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) meticulously calculated the budget for UFWD in his essay ‘How China Mobilizes Funding for United Front Work (China Brief Volume: 20 Issue: 16). This indicates the priority given to this agency by the Chinese government and the CCP.
There is no direct budget for UFWD but there are several government and quasi-government bodies which fund it. That include Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, State Ethnic Affairs Commission, State Administration of Religious Affairs, Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. The current annual budget for UFWD allocated through these bodies stands at not less than $1.4 billion.
“Chinese officials maintain that the United Front system is a benign network of administrative organizations, and that the PRC’s foreign policy is based on “mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs” (PRC Embassy in Sweden, August 2019; ABC, June 2020). If this really were the case, regional governments probably would not classify their united front spending as secret 秘密資助 (Mìmì zīzhù) or refuse to disclose the structure of government offices ostensibly reserved for public diplomacy,” says Fedasiuk.
He further adds, “That regional governments in China budget nearly as much for united front work ($1.3 billion annually) as they do for CPC propaganda indicates how highly the Party values the united front as a tool for both domestic and foreign influence’.”
Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO)
This department /office is a front for keeping tabs on the Chinese communities abroad. It works closely with the Chinese Ministry of Education. According to Mattis, “The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the Ministry of Education… keep tabs on Chinese who live outside of China. The former office maintains ties to overseas Chinese communities and sponsors a variety of Chinese professional associations. The Ministry of Education keeps tabs on Chinese students abroad and helps support students’ and scholars’ associations. Both assist in mobilizing Chinese expats and émigrés for visible displays of support when Beijing wants, such as during the 2008 Olympic torch relay.”
According to the official website of ‘Overseas Chinese Office’, its major responsibilities include, “To study and formulate the guidelines, policies and regulations concerning overseas Chinese affairs, as well as to supervise and check their implementation; and to conduct research and study on the development of overseas Chinese affairs both domestically and abroad, to provide the information to the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council.
Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC)
Established in 1956, the ISTIC is officially a premier scientific research institute of China. But that is a façade. Its real task is to collect technologies and related information from all over the world in whichever manner it is possible. If one can read between the lines, the official website of ISTIC gives ample indications about the real work it does. The website says, “ISTIC has established long-term and stable business cooperation relations with relevant research institutions in the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries and regions, and has become an important platform for international cooperation and exchange in the field of science and technology information in China.”
George Soros and Chinese spy agency worked together as comrades.
George Soros’ history with the Chinese reveals his hypocrisy as he presents himself as a champion of democracy.
George Soros, the US-based controversial billionaire, and the Chinese premier spy agency Ministry of State Security (MSS) have worked hand in glove in the 1980s where Soros provided substantial funding to MSS through Economic System Reform Institute (ESRI) and China International Culture Exchange Center (CICEC).
It appears that Soros was playing a ‘double game’ by pursuing the Western interests to infiltrate China while also forging a close partnership with Chinese intelligence network and top bosses of the Chinese Communist Party. The apparent reason was an opportunity that he must have seen to benefit from China’s economic growth in the 1980s.
But this partnership fell apart with the change in the Chinese regime after 1989. Several representatives of Soros’ entity ‘China Fund’ were arrested by the Chinese authorities post- Tiananmen square massacre in 1989. The Chinese authorities accused them of working for the US’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Soros’ China Fund and the Ministry of State Security
Soros started making overtures to China in the 1980s. He first identified and handpicked Liang Heng, a bestselling author in 1984 to set up his shop in China. Heng had become famous after publishing his memoir Son of the Revolution’ that was a personal account of how China was opening to the West and the purges carried out at regular intervals by the Communist Party China (CPC).
Liang connected Soros with important people in the Chinese establishment. The façade kept for this whole initiative was that Soros wanted to help China to carry out reforms.
By that time, he had already set up ‘Open Society Foundations’, a funding arm known for instigating coups, political upheavals, and chaos in various countries through a web of well-funded non-Governmental organizations (NGOs). But given the fact that bets were very high in China, Soros decided to set up a separate entity which would work only in China.
In 1986, Soros set up ‘China Fund’ with a $1 million endowment. Through Liang’s network, the China Fund initially partnered with a Chinese think tank Economic System Reform Institute (ESRI).
In October 1986, Soros opened the China Fund formally in a signing ceremony at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. This was his first trip to China.
Soros struck gold by roping ESRI as it was close to the premier Zhao Ziyang, who became the Party’s general secretary the next year. Zhao’s personal secretary, Bao Tong, was also known for helping the China Fund-ESRI joint venture whenever they needed to get through the Chinese bureaucracy.
Behind the façade of helping China to shape reformist economic policies, the China Fund started spreading its tentacles very fast. Within a year of its establishment, it set up an artists’ club in Beijing and an academic unit at Nankai University in Tianjin. Within the first two years of arriving in China, Soros’ China Fund gave hefty grants for at least 200 proposals. However, as the Fund started pushing the envelope too far by funding research on sensitive topics like the notorious ‘Cultural Revolution’ that had resulted in torture and deaths of millions of Chinese in 1960s, alarm bells started ringing in Chinese official circles and Zhao Ziyang had to step in despite his support for Soros and China Fund.
Alex Joske says in Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World, “In the face of complaints from Party elders about the China Fund, Zhao Ziyang ceded its control to new management. It wasn’t a fight he wanted to pick, nor one he could dare to. Zhao agreed to sever ties between the ESRI and the China Fund, bringing in the China International Culture Exchange Center (CICEC), a group under the Ministry of Culture, as its new partner institution.
Things weren’t all bad, or so it seemed. CICEC had the backing of senior Party leaders, including (present Chinese president) Xi Jinping’s father, and served as one of the only official channels for cultural exchanges with the outside world. Its strong ties to officialdom could insulate Zhao and the China Fund.”
Soros travelled to China in February 1988 to sign a revised agreement with Yu Enguang, a Chinese spy master who was a high-ranking official of the MSS. CICEC itself was a front for the MSS. It would be too naïve to accept that Soros didn’t know about this ‘open secret’ though he tried to defend himself later by pleading ignorance about this fact.
Soros got along well with Yu Enguang at a personal level. The latter secured Soros a rare meeting with the top leadership of CCP in Beijing. Soros, reconfirmed his commitment to bankroll joint operations of China Fund and CICEC. The new Chinese co-chair of this project Yu Enguang.
According to Joske, Yu Enguang was the pseudonym of the Chinese spy master Yu Fang. ‘Among his comrades in the MSS, Yu Fang was just as respected as ‘Yu Enguang’ was by the targets he cultivated. At some point in his career, he headed the agency’s important central administrative office, and in the early nineties helped secure the passage of China’s first National Security Law, which expanded and codified MSS powers. The authors of several MSS publications, marked for internal distribution only, thank him for advising on and improving their drafts. He also oversaw MSS production and censorship of histories, TV dramas and movies about spies, which were designed to build public awareness and support for the MSS’s mission.’
Joske adds, “Ironically for a man who helped bring Chinese intelligence history into the public sphere, Yu’s true legacy is an official secret. Official references to his achievements are brief and elliptical. The authoritative People’s Daily eulogized him in 2013, an honor only a handful of intelligence officers receive: ‘In his sixty years of life in the revolution, Comrade Yu Fang was loyal to the Party, scrupulously carried out his duties and selflessly offered himself to the Party’s endeavors, making important contributions to the Party’s state security endeavor.’ The article also noted that he’d been a member of the National People’s Congress, China’s national legislature.”
Thus, Soros was dealing with a top-ranking Chinese intelligence official. Initially, this partnership was going off well. In fact, MSS was using Soros’ money to fund its operations under the garb of cultural exchange programs carried out by CICEC.
Incidentally, the official website of the CICEC, when accessed currently, doesn’t show any link it had in the past with Soros and the China Fund. It talks about its focus on ‘cultural exchange programs, which is a common phrase used frequently by the Chinese intelligence agencies to give legitimacy to their spy operations. The CICEC holds cultural festivals across the world and officially claims to be working to create support for China’s ‘One belt, one road’ initiative. Incidentally, CICEC was set up in 1984, a year after MSS came into existence and it was just a couple of years old when Soros’ China Fund forged a partnership with it. It was well-known to China watchers right since its inception that CICEC was a front for the MSS. It is difficult to apprehend that Soros didn’t know about this!
Post-Tiananmen Square
Everything was going well for Soros’ China Fund till Tiananmen square happened in 1989. Chinese authorities suspected that the China Fund played an active role in fueling demonstrations at Tiananmen square that ended in a massacre of thousands of people by Chinese authorities. Meanwhile the Tiananmen square massacre also led to a purge within the party as CCP’s general secretary Zhao Ziyang was not only replaced but was also put under house arrest.
With the arrest of Zhao as well as his secretary Bao Tong, both of whom backed Soros and his China Fund, the Chinese authorities began their crackdown. Soros immediately shut the shop leaving many of his Chinese associates in the lurch and at the mercy of Chinese authorities.
MSS, in its updates to the top party bosses, days before the Tiananmen massacre happened gave details about the role of China Fund as a CIA front in fueling these demonstrations.
According to The Tiananmen Papers, a huge cache of internal CCP reports related to the massacre, that was leaked later, the MSS told the party bosses, “Our investigations have revealed that Liang Heng, the personal representative of the (China Fund) chairman George Soros, was a suspected US spy. Moreover, four American members of the foundation’s advisory committee had CIA connections.”
“According to the MSS’s narrative, Soros showed his ‘true colors’ by asking Yu to close the fund in May 1989 once he realized that supporters of reform were being purged,” observed Joske.
Soros co-chaired the China Fund-CICEC partnership with a top-level Chinese spy master Yu Enguang (also known as Yu Fang). The MSS used the funds provided by Soros’ China Fund to finance many of its operations. Had there not been an internal turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party throwing Soros’ supporters in the Chinese establishment out of power, Soros would have been working closely with an authoritarian Chinese government and continued to play the ‘double game’ ultimately benefiting his business interests from both sides. This history of Soros with the Chinese also exposes his double speak as he claims to be the champion of democracy!
What a Chinese spy agency the Ministry of State Security disrupts the world
MSS was set up in 1983 to bring together multiple agencies which were already functional so that Chinese spy networks could work more cohesively as well as ruthlessly.
China’s premier spy agency Ministry for State Security (MSS) has been on the forefront of setting up and running a ruthless global espionage and counter-espionage network.
MSS was set up in 1983 to bring together multiple agencies which were already functional so that Chinese spy networks could work more cohesively as well as ruthlessly.
Officially the proposal to set up this agency was brought by Zhao Ziyang at the first session of the sixth National People’s Congress (NPC) on June 20, 1983. The NPC can be broadly termed as the Parliament of China.
Ziyang proposed the establishment of a state security ministry “to protect the security of the state and strengthen China’s counterespionage work.” The NPC approved it and voted to appoint Ling Yun as the first minister.
The inaugural meeting of the MSS was held on 1 July 1983 to announce the formal establishment of the. The opening speech was delivered by chairman Chen Pixian of the ‘Central Political-Legal Commission’ one of the key bodies of CCP. He categorically said, “Doing state security work well will effectively promote socialist modernization and the cause of realizing the unification of the motherland opposing hegemonism and defending world peace.” The Chinese intent was clear: MSS would be its ace espionage and counter-intelligence agency.
Since President Xi Jinping took over the reins of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the Chinese establishment in 2012, MSS has been endowed with even greater authority and its sphere of influence has increased significantly. In Xi Jinping’s scheme of things, Chinese espionage agencies, especially MSS, lead from the front to change the existing world order.
Since the remit of China’s intelligence agencies is much broader than those of Western nations, they need more resources, and Xi Jinping has made sure they receive them, say Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg in Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.
Roger Faligot (Chinese Spies: From Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping) has written, there has been a “formidable increase in the authority of the Chinese intelligence apparatus, specifically since 2017”.
The MSS indulges in all kinds of dubious clandestine activities including sabotage, industrial espionage, theft of technology. It has created several fronts in the form of think tanks and trade and cultural bodies to carry out such activities. The prominent among them are China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, China Reform Forum and Chinese Association for the Promotion of Cultural Exchange and Cooperation.
Structure of MSS
Last known, MSS has 18 bureaus spread over at least four compounds in Beijing serving as their headquarters and then they have provincial and other local networks within China as well as a global network. The functions of many of them are not yet known. China Institute of Contemporary International Relations is the public façade of 11th bureau of MSS. Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil have painstakingly gathered some details about these bureaus in ‘Chinese Communist Espionage: A Primer’ such as:
“ • First Bureau: “secret line” operations by MSS officers not under covers associated with Chinese government organizations.
Second Bureau: “open line” operations by MSS officers using diplomatic, journalistic, or other government-related covers.
Fourth Bureau: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Fifth Bureau: Report Analysis and Dissemination.
Seventh Bureau: Counterespionage Intelligence Bureau, gathers information and develops intelligence on hostile intelligence services inside and outside China.
Eighth Bureau: Counterespionage Investigation, runs investigations to detect and apprehend foreign spies in China.
Ninth Bureau: Internal Protection and Reconnaissance Bureau, supervises and monitors foreign entities and reactionary organizations in China to prevent espionage.
Tenth Bureau: Foreign Security and Reconnaissance Bureau, manages Chinese student organizations and other entities overseas and investigates the activities of reactionary organizations abroad.
Eleventh Bureau: China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, performs open-source research, translation, and analysis. Its analysts also meet regularly with foreign delegations and spend time abroad as visiting fellows.
Twelfth Bureau: Social Affairs or Social Investigation Bureau, handles MSS contributions to the CCP’s united front work System (also known as United Front Works Department-UFWD, which is another major espionage network of Chinese government and CPC).
Thirteenth Bureau: Network Security and Exploitation (also known as the China Information Technology Evaluation Center, manages the research and development of other investigative equipment.
Fourteenth Bureau: Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, conducts mail inspection and telecommunications inspection and control.
Fifteenth Bureau: Taiwan operations linked to the broader Taiwan Affairs work system. Its public face is the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the China Academy of Social Sciences.
Eighteenth Bureau: US Operations Bureau for conducting and managing clandestine intelligence operations against the United States.”
There is hardly any information about the real work done by the third, sixth, sixteenth and seventeenth bureau of the MSS.
According to an online report by China Digital published in 2015, the MSS had a strength of 100,000 ‘spies’. Around 60,000 of them worked within China while 40,000 of them were working in other countries for China.
Explaining this mammoth size and the massive expansion of MSS, Mattis and Brazil elaborated, “The expansion occurred in four waves. The original departments (or those created within the first year) appeared to be the municipal bureaus or provincial departments of state security for Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Shanghai. A second wave appeared shortly thereafter between 1985 and 1988, including Chongqing, Gansu, Hainan, Henan, Shaanxi, Tianjin, and Zhejiang. The third wave from 1990 to 1995 completed the expansion of the ministry across the country at provincial levels, bringing in Anhui, Hunan, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces.161 The fourth wave of MSS expansion was vertical. The provincial-level departments either took over local public security bureaus or established subordinate municipal or county bureaus. For many local PSB officers, they were police one day and state security the next. When MSS minister Jia left in 1998 for the MPS, the MSS was a nationwide organization at every level.”
“From the national level to the local levels, the MSS and its subordinate departments and bureaus report to a system of leading small groups, coordinating offices, and commissions to guide security work while lessening the risk of politicization on behalf of CCP leaders. At present, the two most important of these are the Political-Legal Commission and the Central State Security Commission.”
Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg have mentioned in Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World, “It was reported in 2005 that the FBI believed the MSS had set up around 3000 front companies to conceal its activities. The MSS has various arms engaged in economic espionage and it has ‘embedded itself deep in major financial and commercial organizations, particularly in Shanghai and Hong Kong’. Not all economic espionage is state directed. Chinese nationals are known to set up firms that take orders from companies in China to obtain and supply specific pieces of intellectual property from their competitors in the West, usually by identifying an employee willing to provide such secrets.”
Bloody Purge within MSS
While MSS has successfully infiltrated many spy agencies of other countries, it also suffered a major setback when in 2010, it was revealed that there are several Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) moles working in China and MSS for the American agency.
This led to a bloody purge within MSS. The CIA assets were exposed because of a botched-up communication system of the US spy agency. It reportedly used the same equipment in China which it was using to communicate with its operatives in the middle east. But the Chinese spy agency was much more efficient than the middle east and the CIA underestimated its tech capability. MSS was able to crack this communication network. According to various reports, anywhere between one dozen to two dozen operatives of the CIA were rounded up and executed over a period of two years by the MSS. The CIA did manage to take out many of its ‘assets’ but it had to suffer a major loss.
According to a report published in the journal Foreign Policy in 2018, “It was considered one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades: Over a two-year period starting in late 2010, Chinese authorities systematically dismantled the agency’s network of agents across the country, executing dozens of suspected US spies.”
Recruitment and working pattern.
One of the key methods deployed by MSS is to use the Chinese diaspora to create assets in other countries. Its first bureau plays a significant role in this regard. A survey done by the US-based Centre for Strategic Studies gives an indication about MSS’ approach towards espionage. This survey listed 160 publicly reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States since 2000. According to the survey report:
42% of actors were Chinese military or government employees.
32% were private Chinese citizens.
26% were non-Chinese actors (usually U.S. persons recruited by Chinese officials)
34% of incidents sought to acquire military technology.
51% of incidents sought to acquire commercial technologies.
16% of incidents sought to acquire information on U.S. civilian agencies or politicians.
41% of incidents involved cyber espionage, usually by State-affiliated actors.
According to Hamilton and Ohlberg, “Ego, sex, ideology, patriotism, and especially money is all exploited by China’s intelligence services to recruit spies. In 2017 an FBI employee, Kun Shan Chun (Joey Chun), was convicted of supplying information about the bureau’s organization and operations to Chinese agents, in exchange for free international travel and visits to prostitutes. Among those who spy for China, ideology is a factor mainly for people of Chinese heritage (unlike during the Cold War, when Westerners spied for the USSR for ideological reasons). Beijing also deploys the threat of punishment of family members in China if a target refuses to cooperate.
UFWD: ‘Magic weapon’ in China’s espionage arsenal
The UFWD’s work is inspired by the Leninist theory of uniting with lesser enemies to defeat greater ones
Chinese President Xi Jinping
One of the key constituents of the global Chinese Spy Network is the United Front Work Department (UFWD). It is entrusted with coordination and operational aspects of ‘united front’ activities. The Chinese initially defined ‘united front’ more as a concept. Later it set up UFWD to carry out these activities as the nodal agency.
Background
The UFWD’s work is inspired by the Leninist theory of uniting with lesser enemies to defeat greater ones. Since its founding, this has been a key element of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy to consolidate its hold on power, both domestically and internationally.
The UFWD’s first deployment was to join and subvert the then ruling Nationalist government, the Kuomintang, in the early 1920s. A 2018 research report by US-China Economic and Security Review Commission explained it further, “The CCP then formed an alliance of convenience with the Kuomintang to discourage it from trying to wipe out the fledgling CCP while uniting their efforts against Japan.”
According to Gerry Groot, senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide and renowned expert on the United Front, this campaign evolved into a systematic effort to recruit “fellow travelers,” mostly “famous intellectuals, writers, teachers, students, publishers, and businesspeople who were not necessarily Communists.”
Modus Operandi
The modus operandi of the UFWD is one of the least discussed issues in the public domain when it comes to Chinese covert operations. It is not surprising as UFWD operates through a complex web of organizations which act as a front for united front work.
There are thousands of organizations which work for UFWD under the garb of cultural, educational, commercial, and philanthropic organizations. Alex Joske explains the philosophy behind UFWD in his groundbreaking expose of Chinese intelligence operations Spies and Lies, “Party leaders since Mao Zedong have referred to the united front as one of their three ‘magic weapons’. Together with armed struggle and efforts to strengthen Party organization, the two other magic weapons, the CCP credits the united front work with major contributions to its victory in 1949, China’s modernization and subsequent economic development.”
The key task of UFWD is to build a global network of influencers and ‘operators’ who manipulate the global narrative by hook or crook. The UFWD specifically brings into its spy net intellectuals, local community leaders, religious and ethnic figures, journalists, academia, and business magnates.
According to Joske, recent cases from around the world have shown, the (Chinese Communist) Party seeks to insert itself into segments of diaspora communities and then mobilize them as political influence. Co-optees can be used to suppress dissidents, make political donations, mentor political candidates and staffers, and otherwise apply pressure in support of Beijing’s interests.
In a 2020 research paper on UFWD, ASPI said, “There’s no clear distinction between domestic and overseas united front work: all bureaus of the UFWD and all areas of united front work involve overseas activities. This is because the key distinction underlying the United Front is not between domestic and overseas groups, but between the CCP and everyone else. For example, the UFWD’s Xinjiang Bureau plays a central role in policy on Xinjiang but is also involved in worldwide efforts to whitewash the CCP’s internment of an estimated 1.5 million people in Xinjiang, primarily ethnic Uyghur Muslims, as an anti-terrorism and vocational training effort.”
Structure
The UFWD follows the directions given by an important CCP body known as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The latter is led by a member of the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee.
According to the latest information available, UFWD has a presence across all provinces in China, in all its embassies abroad, in foreign universities and in various international trade organizations as well as in civil society also. According to the ASPI report, “Internally, the department has 10 leaders, at least six of whom hold ministerial rank or higher. It has 12 bureaus, half of which were created after 2015. Bureaucratic changes in 2018 that brought overseas Chinese affairs under the UFWD’s ‘unified management’ also injected dozens if not hundreds of officials with substantial overseas experience into the department. Jinan University, Huaqiao University and the Central Institute of Socialism in Beijing are all subordinate to the UFWD and carry out research and training to support its efforts. Additionally, the UFWD runs dedicated training facilities, such as the Jixian Mountain Estate, which is a complex in the outskirts of Beijing used for training China Overseas Friendship Association cadres.”
Organizations such as the China Overseas Friendship Association, are part of the ‘united front system’. At least two such organizations held special consultative status as non-governmental organizations in the UN Economic and Social Council. According to an ASPI report, “In 2014, an official from one of them, the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture, was barred from a UN human rights hearing after he intimidated a woman testifying about her father, political prisoner Wang Bingzhang.”
The 12 bureaus of UFWD
UFWD’s 12 bureaus deal with separate tasks. Here is how the work has been distributed to them:
First Bureau: Minor Parties Work Bureau (Oversees China’s eight democratic parties) Second Bureau: Deals with Ethnic Affairs Third Bureau: Deals with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Fourth Bureau: Deals with business persons and private companies Fifth Bureau: Non-Affiliated and Minor Party Intellectuals related work Sixth Bureau: Targets urban professionals such as employees of foreign companies Seventh Bureau: Handles Tibet related issues Eighth Bureau: Handles issues related to Xinjiang province Ninth Bureau: Overseas Chinese affairs (regional responsibilities) Tenth Bureau: Overseas Chinese Affairs (Media, Cultural and educational activities) Eleventh Bureau and Twelfth Bureau: Issues related to religion
Xi Jinping and UFWD
Though UFWD has always been used by the CCP as a key element of its spy network, Xi Jinping pushed it to a new high after he took over as Chinese President in 2012. In 2015, Xi declared in an important central united front work meeting, “The United Front … is an important magic weapon for strengthening the party’s ruling position … and an important magic weapon for realizing the China Dream of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation.”
More than 40,000 new personnel were recruited for different wings of UFWD within a few years of Xi taking over the reins of CCP. Xi’s specific focus on UFWD shouldn’t surprise those who know his background. Xi Jinping’s father Xi Zhongxun was known for carrying out UFWD missions in Tibet. One of his key assignments was to influence the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. As a Politburo member he supervised the UFWD work in the 1980s. Xi rose in the party by climbing through CCP ranks in Fujian province which is known to be a hotbed of united front activities targeting Taiwan. In 1995, he wrote a paper on united front work in the Chinese diaspora. He advocated several new ideas in this paper regarding UFWD which he started implementing in 2012 and expedited it further after the 2015 conference of united front work.
The result is evident. Countries like Australia, US, Canada have exposed how Chinese have been using their spying arms like UFWD to create a deep Chinese state in their countries especially in their political and policy making sphere.
What Jamie Watt, a contributing Columnist to The Toronto Star, wrote in his column on 23 February 2023, would aptly explain the lethalness of Chinese ‘magic weapons’ such as UFWD. Commenting on how incriminating evidence has come out regarding Chinese interference in Canadian elections benefitting Justin Trudeau’s party, Watt wrote: “Just this past week, the Globe and Mail reported news from CSIS that Canadian politicians, government officials, business executives and Chinese Canadians all have been prime targets of Chinese government espionage. This espionage has deployed blackmail, bribery, and sexual seduction. The range and nature of the tactics used are usually reserved for spy novels, but national security experts now deem China’s espionage infrastructure to go far deeper than even the Soviet’s efforts at the height of the Cold War.”
Watt sounds an alarm bell about Canada which explains how Chinese espionage works through organs like UFWD, “It is time that we understand our politicians have proven incapable of addressing Chinese state influence. Chinese aren’t just at our gates, they own them. And they’re standing idly by flipping us the bird.”
A US State Department report on China’s Coercive Activities Abroad specifically highlights the role of UFWD as it says, “The CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) is responsible for coordinating domestic and foreign influence operations, through propaganda and manipulation of susceptible audiences and individuals. The CCP’s United Front permeates every aspect of its extensive engagements with the international community. It targets the highest levels of Western democracies; creates a permanent class of China lobbyists whose primary job is to sell access to high level Chinese leaders to corporate America. The United Front has also penetrated deeply into state, local and municipal governments through a myriad of front organizations such as the CCP’s sister-cities programs, trade commissions, and friendship associations.”
This report also reiterates that China considers UFWD to be its ‘magic weapon’ used by China to dominate the world and manipulate the global narrative.
Chinese Military intelligence: How a mammoth war machine plays spy games across the globe.
India remains one of the primary targets of the Chinese espionage network. And Chinese military has a significant role to play in this game of cloak and dagger.
One of the key elements of the Chinese espionage network is the military intelligence that it has been able to keep under wraps. What we are witnessing is a new avatar of Chinese Military intelligence under President Xi Jinping who as a head of the Central Military Commission directly controls the Chinese military.
He started restructuring the Chinese military in 2015-16 and that also included revamping of the Chinese military intelligence network. Peter Mattis explained the importance and implications of this exercise of Chinese espionage network in China reorients strategic military intelligence (Janes, 2017), “On 26 November 2015, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the first significant revision of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since its reorganization during the 1950s, when the PLA transformed from an army fighting a civil war to one capable of protecting a nation-state. The reforms removed the Soviet-inspired system of general departments, established a new division of labour, and realigned the PLA organizationally to better fulfil the Military Strategic Guidelines that state the goal of winning informationized local wars.”
“Many elements of the PLA’s modernization effort in the past 25 years have had strictly military implications, but this round of reforms reaches far beyond the Chinese military to reshape how the leadership receives information. To reinforce the Central Military Commission’s (CMC’s) control over operational forces and provide better battlefield intelligence support, the PLA created the Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). The new force consolidated much of the PLA’s technical collection capabilities to direct them towards supporting military operations.”
Chinese Military Intelligence Arm: Joint Staff Department
The Chinese military intelligence arm has been innocuously named as Joint Staff Department (JSD). Earlier it was known as 2PLA or second department of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) General Staff Department. The JSD came into existence around seven years ago.
According to Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg (Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World), “The Intelligence Bureau of the CMC Joint Staff Department is not only responsible for military intelligence but also has a history of extensive activity in civilian domains. It draws on military attachés and signals intelligence to gather intelligence. The Joint Staff Department has its own think tanks — the China Institute for International Strategic Studies, which focuses on research, and the China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, which engages in academic and policy exchanges. Its Institute of International Relations (now part of the National University of Defense Technology) trains military attachés and secret agents.”
Structure of Chinese Military Intelligence Apparatus
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls the PLA through its Central Military Commission. President Xi Jinping has been the chairman of the CMC ever since he came to power in 2012.
According to a US Congressional Research Report published in June 2021, China’s current military modernization push began in 1978 and accelerated in the 1990s. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary and “core leader” of the CCP, Chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission, and State President, has continued to make military modernization a priority and has linked military modernization to his signature issue: the “China Dream” of a modern, strong, and prosperous country.
‘In 2017, Xi formalized three broad goals for the PLA: (1) to achieve mechanization of the armed forces and to make significant progress toward what the United States would call a “networked” force by 2020; (2) to “basically complete” China’s military modernization process by 2035; and (3) to have a “world-class” military by 2049, the centenary of the establishment of the PRC. Xi has initiated the most ambitious reform and reorganization of the PLA since the 1950s, to transform the military into a capable joint force as well as to further consolidate control of the PLA in the hands of Xi and the CCP.’
Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), a Washington-based think tank has worked extensively on detailing the structure of Chinese military intelligence through their senior fellow James Drew and Researcher Scott Spaniel. According to Scott and Spaniel, “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Joint Staff Department (JSD) replaced the General Staff Department on January 11, 2016, as part of Xi Jinping’s military reforms. It manages most military and covert operations. The JSD, as a division of the PLA, is dedicated to warfare. The duties of the PLA JSD include PLA Operations Command, Recruitment, Mobilization, Formation, Training, and Administration.”
Second and Third Department
The JSD has three departments which work in coordination to conduct various intelligence operations. These departments deal respectively with electronic intelligence, human intelligence, and signal intelligence. The section within the PLA’s Joint Staff Department that deals with conventional human intelligence (HUMINT) is known as ‘Second Department’.
James Scott and Drew Spaniel estimated in their 2016 book, China’s Espionage Dynasty, that this department had around 30,000–50,000 agents around the world. Their primary task is to collect useful, relevant, and confidential information and send it back to China.
‘A common misconception is that agents of the Chinese government are “sloppy”; however, agents of the second department who serve as high level spies or handlers are rarely caught. Rather, low-level assets, often belonging to the overt structure, are more often detected by foreign intelligence agencies.’
The Third Department which is entrusted with the task of signals intelligence (SIGNIT). According to Drew and Spaniel, “The Third Department is the largest intelligence agency in the Chinese government, consisting of an estimated 250,000- 300,000 linguists, technical staff, and cyber soldiers. There are at least four known Research Institutes (56, 57, 58, and 61) under the Third Department. Within the 61 Research Institute are approximately 20 bureaus that launch cyberattacks. The Third Department intercepts phone calls, launches cyberattacks, and monitors communications. Much of its efforts involve hacking devices and exfiltrating targeted data. The Third Department may launch obvious cyberattacks, such as DDoS or ransomware attacks, against target systems to mask the activity of Second Department operatives.”
Fourth Department
The Fourth Department is responsible for electronic intelligence (ELINT) operations. Its prime focus is on intercepting satellite and radar data. The operatives of Fourth Department are experts in altering, jamming, or spoofing of signals.
“It is believed that the Fourth Department research direct methods of disabling enemy communication networks. State-Sponsored APTs (i.e., Chinese state sponsored advanced persistent threats) can be identified based on their choice of targets, their proclivity for cyberespionage, and the language settings on the keyboards used to develop the malware, and their connections to other campaigns. Some groups, such as APT 1 (Unit 61398), APT 2 (Unit 61486) and APT 30 (Unit 78020) can be linked to specific units within the Third Department. Other APTs remain less defined.”
PLA Unit 61398
In May 2014, five officers of the PLA who belonged to its unit ‘61398’ commonly known for cyber espionage and cyberattacks were indicted by a US court. Several cyber security firms have reported about the clandestine operations of this unit which is one of the key parts of the Chinese Military Intelligence apparatus. This unit primarily targets countries with flourishing democracies as they are a perfect antidote to the Chinese authoritarian system. Hence along with several other countries, India has also been one of their targets. Several cyberattacks on the Indian establishment are believed to have been carried out by this unit. It is reportedly headquartered in Datong Avenue of Pudong district in Shanghai. There has been a consistent spurt in its activities.
Conclusion
The Chinese military intelligence is committed to pursue the so-called vision of Xi Jinping and peddle a pro-China global narrative. China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), a front form the Chinese military intelligence network, carried a detailed comment on India. Authored by Lan Jianxue, Director of the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies at CIIS, this is what Chinese military intelligence conveyed, “Noticeably, the connotation of the so-called Asian Century, as understood by the United States, is not quite the same as that understood by the Chinese. The expression “Asian Century” was coined by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1988. Deng pointed out that no genuine Asian Century can come until China, India and other neighboring countries are developed.
It is clear the United States remains one of the primary targets of the Chinese espionage network. And the Chinese military has a significant role to play in this game of cloak and dagger.
中國網絡衝突討論，信息與研究 // Chinese Cyber Conflict Discussions, Information & Research
