China Taking on U.S. in Cyber Arms Race

Pabugs writes with a CNN story about an uncomfortable development in world politics and information technology. According to General Robert Elder, an Air Force military man setting up a 'cyber command' in Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force Base, the nation of China is already in the process of developing their own 'cyber warfare' techniques. While Elder described the bulk of China's operations as focusing on espionage, they and others around the world have more serious goals in mind. "The Defense Department said in its annual report on China's military power last month that China regarded computer network operations -- attacks, defense and exploitation -- as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. China's People's Liberation Army has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Pentagon said. China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said."

China owns a lot of US debt

[svendsen]

I'm more concerned how much of the US debt china owns. Imagine china dumping all the debt and buying Euros. Pretty much most articles I have read said it would crush the dollar. That alone would probably be enough to start and end a war all at once.

Re:No surprise to those watching China

[daveschroeder]

It's comfortable on the chair of moral relativism, isn't it?

If you believe that Communism and freedom and democracy are just two sides of the same coin, I can see your line of reasoning. Sure, Capitalism is in the mix as well, but Captialism only exists and flourishes in a manifestly free society. Some believe that neither model is "better"; just different - the old "Under Communism, man exploits man - under Capitalism, it's the other way around" bit.

Thankfully, many people don't see it that way, and have recognized the benefits of freedom, free access to information, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and so on. Sure, freedom is tempered with the rule of law, and no system of government is perfect, but to quote Winston Churchill, "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Re:Inframa-watchits??

[kalirion]

It's pretty simple. All missiles have an IR port for commands. If there are infrared decoys, the enemy won't know which is the missile to hack! And an angle reflector will reflect the enemy's hacking signals right back at him (think shiny shield against Medusa.)

Re:No surprise to those watching China

[daveschroeder]

Communist? Certainly they're still authoritarian, but China hasn't been communist in decades.

I don't even know where to go with this, except to say that you are a shining example of everything I just said in the very post to which you responded.

And if you're going to get all semantic about it in the same way that some people say "the United States isn't really a 'democracy'; it's a federal republic," then go for it. But otherwise, it's perfectly acceptable and indeed correct to refer to China as Communist.

China has had a massive, documented, and concerted effort to get people of all stripes, from authors to analysts to politicians to government officials to individuals members of societies such as yourself, to believe they are no longer "Communist". Apparently it's working quite well.

Re:No surprise to those watching China

[Penguinisto]

As something of a flag bearer for world Communism, Beijing has become a "second Rome for Marxism-Leninism"

A 'second Rome', or a 'Constantinople'?

I don't ask to be some semantical nazi or anything, but this phrase piqued my interest a bit... When Rome basically went splat and fell into the dark ages, Constantinople was basically it. There are a lot of the same parallels, too - The Eastern Roman Empire wasn't nearly as outgoing, wan't nearly as -how do I put it- 'extroverted'? Also, Rome wasn't nearly as refined. The paralels are starting to pile up at this point.

China does do one thing different, though - it welcomes outsiders and uses as much as it can from them. It also exists in a far different geopolitical environment.

I also think that China's political system is (slowly) being changed over time, and could not survive for long if a hard enough adversity hit them - either politically or economically. Something on the order of the Great Depression (a global one, like in the early 1930's) would likely foment some very bad mojo in Beijing, and traditional tolerance by the masses aside, I don't think the Chinese gov't could withstand it w/o either collapsing or going back to the iron fist.

I guess that, while it is good that the West does see them as something to be reckoned with, I believe that the Chinese political system is an increasingly fragile one, but will hold up - as long as times are good.

/P

Re:No surprise to those watching China

[CastrTroy]

Actually, according to Plato, the best form of governance would be a benevolent dictator [wikipedia.org]. However, this has yet to happen in actuality. It would probably be the best thing. But finding a human with absolute power, who wouldn't get corrupted in some way or another is hard/impossible to come by. It may make sense to have a computer making the decisions for everyone such that the rules end up making the most people happy, instead of the people with the most money, as things tend to go now. Since a computer has no need for money, and can't be threatened, it would actually be able to do the job fairly well.

I'm just curious at this point....

[NeutronCowboy]

How is the Chinese leadership Communist? Please describe specific ideologies, approaches and goals that show their communist tendencies. I'm just wondering how you're going to manage that without resorting to the American definition of Communism: "authoritarian government with populist crowd control methods that doesn't like the US".

Re:No surprise to those watching China

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

No, we did not or at least not as you suggest. In my family we received only the basic items (food, clothing, shelter, and education) and items directly associated with those needs free of charge (and even then they were allocated by the parents, not the children).

Those items more than qualify your family as a communist cell. The allocation of resources within the cell may be democratic or it may be authoritarian. The method is immaterial to whether or not it is communism. One of the local housing co-ops votes on what groceries they buy. The monastery near where I used to live was authoritarian, with the highest ranking monk making all the final decisions. Both were communist cells.

If we wanted anything else then we had to save our allowance money...

On of the interesting aspect of communism is that usually, not all resources were shared, just some of them. In some cases the only item shared might be a set of season tickets to a ball game, whereas in another it might be almost everything, with the exception of body parts.

It would be more accurate to say that my family was and is a mini-capitalist unit (w/some minimal socialist policies...and I do mean minimal) operating within a larger capitalist society.

Actually, that would make you a communist cell as well as a mini capitalist unit. All communist cells operate within a larger economy, that is what differentiates it from socialism.

There is nothing wrong with wealth condensation provided that the total production per person and therefore the standard of living rises right along with it (which tends to happen in free market capitalism).

Well, you're right. We disagree on this. Wealth disparity is the single strongest correlative factor to violence in a society. Murder, robbery, beatings, all go up with wealth condensation because even if the average production per person rises, the disparity still rises. The idea that it was poverty and not disparity that was so strongly linked has been fairly well debunked since the 60s.

It is the responsibility of the government to enforce rules and ensure fair dealing, in much the same way that the referee enforces the rules and ensures fair play in a competitive sporting competition.

There is an inherent unfairness to inequality of birth which has been well recognized for a very long time. Have you ever heard the saying "it takes money to make money." That is wealth condensation in a nutshell. The problem is, in an unregulated capitalism some people are born with more wealth, and since that wealth condenses more wealth all other factors being equal, the society becomes less and less economically equal until the system collapses when the poor revolt against the aristocracy, usually with a lot of bloodshed and pain and suffering and random results for a new government.

The combination of democracy with free market capitalism has overwhelmingly and consistently, despite some difficulties, delivered the best economic outcomes...

I don't think you understand. No one has ever had a purely capitalist free market and if it was tried it would not survive a week. The US is a blend of capitalism, communism, and socialism, just like pretty much all other economies. To have pure capitalism, you'd have to have families no longer sharing resources to eliminate the communist element. You'd have to do away with all socialized services like government run police, military, roads, etc. not funded by donations because they are socialism.

All the economies that survive for any length of time are ones that have a similar balance of these elements. The US is just as socialist as the EU, although we direct it differently. We are probably a little less communist and becoming even less so in many ways as atomic families divide into smaller cell sizes (although extended families among the very poor are getting larger).