Cyber warfare will provide China with an asymmetric advantage to deter aggression from stronger military powers and also allow it to leapfrog by means of technology transfer and exploiting adversary’s weakness, according to a report.The report, ‘Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation’ has been prepared by the US-based Northrop Grumman Corporation for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. It was released on October 22.
Some Salient Features of the Report
- 1. Informationisation is a major element of China’s military modernization effort and guided by the doctrine of fighting “Local war under informationised conditions (LWUIC) –
- LWUIC is the PLA’s effort to develop a fully networked architecture capable of coordinating military operations on land, air, sea and space across the electromagnetic spectrum
- China is building its cyber warfare capabilities, so as to transform its ability to collect intelligence through cyber espionage and fight high tech wars
- There is evidence to strongly suggest that the Chinese government is conducting a sophisticated hacking and cyber warfare campaign against US defence sites; and industrial espionage;
- In the event of a Sino-US war, China would also attack the computer networks of the US allies in the Asia-Pacific region such as Taiwan, Japan, Australia etc.
China has rejected the claims of the report as “fabrications”.
