Do I detect another faint new geopolitical border etching its way across the world? Have the US elites who held out for a better world with China had a change of heart?
A confrontational approach is unwise for a country that prizes stability and development and needs to focus on its serious domestic problems, including an increasingly troubled economy. Instead of feeding a resurgent nationalism with mischief-making, Beijing should be working with its neighbors to ease competing claims and to pursue joint development of natural resources.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Gray Lady was urging the US allow China to join the WTO because (provided China adhere to rules) the whole world would benefit.
“For Americans to reject a trade agreement that benefits everyone is misguided. Provided China meets all the conditions, a deal could actually improve the possibility of dialogue on other contentious issues.”
When did the New York Times learn? When they found out their computers were being hacked constantly by the PLA? Tremendous irony here – and I hate to lay it all at the feet of the New York Times – but now the wealthy and elites of America can make out the shape of the leviathan that the working class and middle class of American saw a good decade earlier and protested against. (Yes, the last link is also from the New York Times, which is to their credit).
Everything that rises must converge. That is, states won’t be happy to tolerate indefinite cyber attacks aimed at stealing intellectual property, without those attacks beginning to spoil other areas. Trefor Moss of the Diplomat writes…
…If attacks and counter-attacks are left unchecked, cyberspace may become the venue for a new Cold War for the Internet generation. Much as the old Cold War was characterized by indirect conflict involving proxy forces in third-party states, its 21st century reboot might become a story of virtual conflict prosecuted by shadowy actors in the digital realm.
So far, so good. The title of the article speaks for itself: “Is Cyber War the New Cold War”. We at The Cold War Daily see this macro trend emerging.
Moss notes
And as this undeclared conflict poisons bilateral relations over time, the risk of it spilling over into kinetic hostilities will only grow.
But the unique nature of cyberspace means it’s not clear if a body has been attacked, or who has been attacked. What I find unlikely though, is one of the possible remedies Moss outlines. In one future scenario:
victims of virtual theft might instead focus on gathering evidence and then seek reparations at the World Trade Organisation or the International Court of Justice, much as they would do in cases of IP theft or breaches of sovereignty .
Arguably the WTO doesn’t serve its creators as it once did. In fact, as another writer at the
Integrated circuit (Wikicommons)
Diplomat notes: There might be a covert trade war emerging between China and the US. While many US companies find China the cards stacked against them when doing business there, the US is putting restrictions on the use of China-made telecommunications equipment in the US.
The most famous case is the report from Congress urging US companies not to use equipment from Huawei and ZTE on national security grounds. Both US and Japanese regulators are pushing Sprint and Softbank to bar the use of Chinese-made telecommunications equipment as a condition of their merger.
That doesn’t mean the WTO doesn’t have many more fine years left in it. But let’s just say there aren’t nearly as many people in the world who have such high expectations for free-trade and globalization. Increasingly it’s only the die-hards who do. Skeptics can say that while emerging economies have in fact grown and developed, their legal systems and sense of fair-play in business practices haven’t grown at the same pace.
Take the example brought up here of the impact of hacking on start-ups, which are all about their intellectual property. It’s doubtful these small organisations will have the resources to pursue cases at the WTO or the International Court of Justice. But start-ups are the life blood of the US’s dynamic economy. Are we saying these small, innovative companies must operate in an environment where their code is there for the poaching? I don’t think that’s really acceptable.
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