President Obama Should End the Charade of Cooperative US-China Relations

The President Needs to Respond to the Chinese Government Hack and Start Tightening the Screws

Michael Auslin writes: The news flashing through Washington, that Chinese hackers stole up to 4 million federal employees’ personal information, should elicit more than just a shrug from the Obama administration. The breach is yet more evidence that Beijing sees the US as an adversary and is unworried about any response aggression will elicit from the White House.

“Drop the useless diplomatic parleys to start, cut off military exchanges after that. And start rounding up your liberal allies and potential partners in Asia for talks on joint naval exercises in the South China Sea and the hosting of a democracy forum that invites Chinese dissidents.”

Whether it’s economic espionage, security challenges, or now hacking US government websites, Beijing is testing, probing, and undermining America in any way that they can.

Just a week ago, the Chinese were recorded warning a US Navy surveillance plane away from the reclaimed islands they have been building in the South China Sea. Video footage showed air strips on the islands, while subsequent reports indicated that China had already put some weaponry there.

[Read the full text here, at AEI]

The hack revealed today, which took place last December, is not the first time that Chinese sources have breached US government sites, and they’ve been charged with stealing information on almost every U.S. weapons program. Nor should we forget the explosive Mandiant report from 2013, which revealed how the People’s Liberation Army hacking corps had stolen terabytes of sensitive data from American companies over a period of years…(read more)

AEI