U.S. Panel Warns Of Chinese Espionage

China Stealing "Vast Amounts Of Sensitive Information" In Digital Spy Attacks

(AP)  A congressional advisory panel said Thursday that China has stepped-up computer espionage attacks on the U.S. government, defense contractors and American businesses.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission also said in its annual report to lawmakers that aggressive Chinese space programs are allowing Beijing to target U.S. military forces better.

"China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from U.S. computer networks," said Larry Wortzel, chairman of the commission set up by Congress in 2000 to advise, investigate and report on U.S.-China affairs.

The commission of six Democrats and six Republicans said in the unanimously approved report that China's massive military modernization and its "impressive but disturbing" space and computer warfare capabilities "suggest China is intent on expanding its sphere of control even at the expense of its Asian neighbors and the United States."

The commission recommended that lawmakers provide money for U.S. government programs that would monitor and protect computer networks.

Messages left with the Chinese Embassy in Washington were not immediately returned. Officials in Beijing have responded to past reports by saying China does not try to undermine other countries' interests and seeks healthy ties with the United States.

The report comes two months before President-elect Barack Obama takes office. The Democratic Obama administration probably will continue the Republican Bush administration's efforts to work with and encourage China, a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council that the United States needs in nuclear confrontations with Iran and North Korea.

During the campaign for president, then-candidate Obama said that "China is rising, and it's not going away," adding that Beijing is "neither our enemy nor our friend; they're competitors."

In the commission's report, Chinese military strategist Wang Huacheng is quoted as calling U.S. dependence on space assets and information technology its "soft ribs."

China's space program is "steadily increasing the vulnerability of U.S. assets," the report said. For instance, improvements in satellite imagery allow China to locate U.S. carrier battle groups more accurately, faster and from farther away.

People's Liberation Army officer and author Cai Fengzhen is quoted as saying that the "area above ground, airspace and outer space are inseparable and integrated. They are the strategic commanding height of modern informationalized warfare."

"If this becomes Chinese policy," the report said, "it could set the stage for conflict with the United States and other nations that expect the right of passage for their spacecraft."

The commission also found fault with what it said was China's use of prison labor to produce export products and with Beijing's lax regulatory oversight of an estimated 4.5 million fish farms.

"Even more shocking is the lack of regulations and inspections within the United States," Commissioner Carolyn Bartholomew said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she said, inspects less than 2 percent of all fish imports. The FDA plans this week to open several offices in China, she said, but "the challenge is immense. More than a billion pounds of Chinese seafood, valued at $1.9 billion, was imported into the United States in 2006."

The commission also criticized China for violating commitments to avoid trade-distorting measures, adopting new laws that may restrict foreign access to China's markets and keeping its currency undervalued to get an export advantage.

It recommended that Congress enact legislation to respond to China's currency manipulation and create enforceable disclosure requirements on investments in the United States for foreign sovereign wealth funds and other foreign state-controlled companies.

[demdump]

Ask Bill Clinton, he is the one invited China to WTO...hah hah hah

[redfiveuk]

With the idiotic political classes still espousing how we must all be part of the world economy, its no wonder the USA power is being drained away. Surely this is no the time to cancel all of China''s and Russia''s imports. If they really are going to overtake the usa both financially and militarily then we should not let them do it with USA $$$$, even a kindergarten kid could work that one out. But on no our gov just keeps on rolling us down the road to destruction.

[generey]

China Stealing "Vast Amounts Of Sensitive Information" In Digital Spy Attacks.


Well duh.

[welshwoman-2009]

We should bring manufacturing jobs back to the US and stop buying from China. But we would have to go non-union because the unions are the reason we lost the jobs in the first place - they want a lot of money to do nothing. I know, I work in a union shop. There are a few exceptions to the rule and I support them 100%.

[getoffmine1]

gee there a shocker, China stealing who would have thought. Most of their technology has been gained that way. If we stopped trading and all relations with them we could screw them up really bad, despite the money we owe them. Instead of bailing out credit card companies, car makers and banks, lets take the rest of the bailout package (350 billion) pay them back and then tell them to go to h e l l. Don''t allow any in=mports don''t give them any technology, patients for medicine, anything. In about 10 years they would be back to third world status, and we would be prosperous again due to finally getting rid of our debt and deficits, and balancing the budget. If everyone in that country were to starve as a result of our actions we would have done nothing wrong. We don''t owe them anything.

[liberty4you]

Americans,

Our country''s security apparatus has sold us all out.
With Multi-national corporations collaborating with foreign intelligence agencies to spy on Americans in the name of security, Microspoft and others.

I suggest that everyone who wants to know and understand how our NSA is collaborating, then read then New York Times'' contributor: James Bramford''s

The Shadow Factory -no joke.

[earache4]

China Stealing "Vast Amounts Of Sensitive Information" In Digital Spy Attacks

It''s not stealing if you own the country you are taking the information from....

[rf35]

"The commission recommended that lawmakers provide money for U.S. government programs that would monitor and protect computer networks."

Yeah, I bet they do. Note the key word in this passage: "monitor." It looks like Americans are trading the last vestiges of their privacy for a false sense of secutiry. It started with monitoring phone calls after 9/11, now on to computer communications. What''s next, parabolic mics on every corner? I''m not given to paranoid delusions, but this is getting mighty stinky, fast. And just who will be doing this monitoring? A Chinese or Indian sub-contractor??

[babooph]

Best not to let them find how behind the US has become-they are on the way to the moon-the US blasting schools &wedding parties with drones.

[guadalcanal3]

All the more reason to be tight with Russia.