# The Drums of US-China Cyber War

- Link: https://www.thailand-business-news.com/china/129135-the-drums-of-us-china-cyber-war
- Published: 2024-03-04T19:45:14+07:00
- Author: Stephen S. Roach

NEW HAVEN – FBI Director Christopher Wray recently upped the ante in America’s anti-
China campaign. In [congressional testimony](https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/director-wrays-opening-statement-to-the-house-select-committee-on-the-chinese-communist-party)
on January 31, he sounded the alarm over intensified Chinese hacking activity and
warned that US infrastructure – telecommunications, energy, transportation, and 
water – is acutely vulnerable to the Chinese state-sponsored hacker group Volt Typhoon.
Front-page [coverage](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/us/politics/fbi-director-china-wray-.html)
by the_ New York Times_ added to the sense of urgency.

A few days after Wray’s testimony, a [joint report](https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa24-038a)
from the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the
National Security Agency (NSA) provided detailed documentation of the Volt Typhoon
threat. More front-page [coverage](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/business/china-leaked-files.html)
by the _Times_ duly followed. And then came the [outage](https://www.reuters.com/technology/cellular-outage-us-hits-att-t-mobile-verizon-users-downdetector-shows-2024-02-22/)
of a major cellular network on February 22. Suddenly, cyber fears have taken on 
a life of their own.

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Largely ignored in this frenzy is an important conditionality to Wray’s warning.
China, he alleged, was “prepositioning” for future conflict. That is not the same
as Russian President Vladimir Putin massing troops on Ukraine’s border in late 2021
and early 2022. In Wray’s words, Volt Typhoon could be expected to attack US critical
infrastructure, “_If or when_ China decides the time has come to strike” (my emphasis).

## Key Takeaways

 * The FBI’s public alarm about Chinese cyber threats is based on conjecture about
   future intent rather than concrete information of an imminent cyberattack.
 * The US anti-China campaign is driven by presuppositional resonance, fearmongering,
   and historical Cold War tactics, leading to a dangerous escalation of tensions.
 * The growing drumbeat of US-China cyberwar, reinforced by trade and tech wars,
   poses grave danger and raises concerns about the potential for an accidental 
   conflic

Thus, the FBI, in concurrence with CISA and the NSA, is basing its very public alarm
purely on conjecture about China’s future intent, not on any concrete information
of an imminent cyberattack. Far be it for me to doubt the veracity of the US intelligence
community’s evidence on Volt Typhoon; I would merely point out that this is circumstantial
evidence that has revealed absolutely nothing about the likelihood of action. For
those who remember the dire, but erroneous, warnings about Saddam Hussein’s supposed
weapons of mass destruction, which the United States used to justify the invasion
of Iraq in 2003, this is no small concern. 

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Having recently written a book about the potential of false narratives to trigger
an [accidental conflict](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300273991/accidental-conflict/)
between the US and China, I worry a lot about over-zealous emphasis on circumstantial
evidence. I also worry about the hypocrisy of the allegations of Chinese cyber prepositioning.
Recall that the US deployed the [Stuxnet computer virus](https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-real-story-of-stuxnet)
against Iranian nuclear centrifuges back in 2010. 

In a remarkable new book, [_The Politics of Language_](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691181981/the-politics-of-language),
David Beaver and [Jason Stanley](https://www.project-syndicate.org/columnist/jason-stanley)
describe such leaps of faith as cases of “presuppositional resonance”: unsubstantiated
projections of tangential (circumstantial) information that are marshaled to justify
a politically expedient course of action. The current US political agenda vis-à-
vis China is a classic example of this tendency.

Wray’s presuppositional warnings do not come out of thin air. He has a long history
of anti-China fearmongering. In the summer of 2020, as that year’s presidential 
election campaign was heating up, Wray joined three other senior officials from 
Donald Trump’s administration (Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General 
William Barr, and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien) in a succession of carefully
orchestrated anti-China [tirades](https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/04/opinions/americas-gang-of-four-stephen-roach/index.html).
Once a lead actor in Trump’s political theater, Wray has been unwavering in his 
strident Sinophobic views ever since.

The FBI director’s fixation on Chinese cyber threats has an unfortunate historical
precedent that harks back to the first Cold War. The “red baiting” that targeted
the Soviet Union and alleged Communist sympathizers back then is aimed at China 
today.

The bipartisan anti-China campaign in Washington seems dead set on backing the Chinese
into a corner. That has become increasingly evident in the past three years, as 
the Biden administration has continued to prosecute the trade and tech wars that
Trump started. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi compounded the pressure 
campaign with her 2022 visit to Taiwan, which poured salt on one of China’s most
sensitive open wounds. 

Similarly, under the leadership of US Representative Mike Gallagher – a soon-to-
be retiring Republican from Wisconsin – a new bipartisan House Select Committee 
on China has used a combination of carefully staged hearings, threatening letters
to US companies, and multimedia stagecraft to lead a crusade against China. It was
hardly surprising to see the committee welcome Wray with open arms to its hearing
on January 31.

Countless other US politicians have jumped on the bandwagon. There probably is not
a single member of the US Congress – Democrat or Republican – who is willing to 
take a principled stand in favor of US re-engagement with China. Anyone tempted 
to do so will be accused of [Munich-like appeasement](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Munich-1938/David-Faber/9781439132340).
Although President Joe Biden came close to re-engagement at the Woodside Summit 
with Chinese President Xi Jinping last November, his administration remains unwavering
in [imposing escalating restrictions](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-11-21/tech-war-us-china-competition-moves-into-advanced-chip-packaging)
on Chinese access to advanced technology. 

To be sure, China hasn’t made it easy. The [surveillance balloon incident](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/taiwan-or-ukraine-could-spark-major-powers-war-by-stephen-s-roach-2023-02)
early last year – to say nothing of a [“no limits” partnership](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-can-take-three-steps-to-end-ukraine-war-by-stephen-s-roach-2022-03)
with Russia, a country prosecuting a barbaric, illegal war of aggression – feeds
America’s China-bashing politics. Wray’s cyber alarms amplify these presumed threats.
In the end, however, this pressure campaign could backfire. Increasingly aggressive
US actions have been stoking precisely the kind of hostile Chinese intentions that
paranoid US politicians fear most. That is true regarding Taiwan and is also the
case now with cyber security. America needs to be very careful of what it asks for.

All this points to a new chapter in the US-China conflict – trade and tech wars 
now reinforced by a cyberwar. Notwithstanding Biden and Xi’s denials, this conflict
has cold war written all over it. The original Cold War came dangerously close to
being hot, especially during the [Berlin Crisis](https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/7852/berlin-crisis-1961)
and the [Cuban Missile Crisis](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis).
Could the risks of cyberwar take us that close again? Do we have the trust-based
capacity to temper those risks? Wray’s fearmongering provides worrying answers to
those questions. Grave danger lies ahead in the growing drumbeat of US-China cyberwar.

**_Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former chairman of 
Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of _**[**Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China**](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300212655/unbalanced/)**_(
Yale University Press, 2014) and _**[**Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives**](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300273991/accidental-conflict/)**_(
Yale University Press, 2022)._**

**Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024.[www.project-syndicate.org](http://www.project-syndicate.org)