China and Cybersecurity

"Given the high stakes and enormous gaps between Chinese and American understandings and agendas on cybersecurity, and with the above two chapters as examples, Lindsay and Reveron are certainly justified in concluding that the book "exemplifies" cooperation to improve understanding. It will be worthwhile reading not only for China scholars and cyber-security experts, but also for international relations and communications scholars." --Pacific Affairs "This book's contributors argue that China is not the electronic supervillain it is often thought to be. Despite the regime's hefty investment in digital espionage and cyberwar capabilities, its networks are less secure than those in the United States, the Chinese agencies that make cybersecurity policy are more fragmented than their U.S. counterparts, and the country suffers losses worth close to $1 billion a year because of weak policing of online theft and fraud. China conducts a great deal of industrial espionage, but its enterprises have a hard time filtering and applying the vast amount of data their hackers steal. Looking only at the Chinese side of the relationship, the book does not detail the digital threats that the United States poses to China. But Chinese thinkers believe they are significant, and given China's strategic doctrine of striking first and massively, this creates the risk that in a crisis, Beijing might launch a preemptive cyberattack. The fact that Chinese and Western experts cooperated in this pathbreaking book shows that there is a potential for working together. But there are many obstacles, including the inherent secrecy of the field." -- Foreign Affairs "The US-China relationship is probably the most important in determining the future of cyberspace. Yet despite all the media reporting about Chinese hacking and cyber espionage, we lack a comprehensive picture of what it is China hopes to accomplish in cyberspace and how it copes with its own vulnerability. This is an extremely useful study not only because it brings international relations, intelligence, military, computer science, and China experts together, but also is one of the rare works that includes the contributions of Chinese academics, analysts, and practioners. This book should be read by all who want a greater understanding of China's cybersecurity situation." -- Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program, Council on Foreign Relations "The 13 articles by 18 Canadian, US, and Chinese specialists ponder much... Every form of contestation, from crime to espionage, is instantly modernized with the preface cyber... Recommended." -- CHOICE