KEN LIEBERTHAL

At the time this quotation was created, the Chinese hacking had done no harm in the sense that they did not destroy the data in any of our computers or render some computers non-operational. We actually had done that and more – using hacking to affect destroy part of an Iranian nuclear fuel processing facility, but we had never done that to China, nor had China to us. A difference that outraged some Americans is that they viewed it as “fair game” to do espionage on military and political secrets. The Chinese however, in addition to that, did much industrial spying on American commercial innovations and manufacturing techniques. The French and the South Koreans, however, had been doing this for years, and American politicians were careful not to make a public issue about it and try to minimize it with diplomacy. However, all this makes a solution hard to come by as Liebenthal explained in his quotation.

At the time this quotation was created, the Chinese hacking had done no harm in the sense that they did not destroy the data in any of our computers or render some computers non-operational. We actually had done that and more – using hacking to affect destroy part of an Iranian nuclear fuel processing facility, but we had never done that to China, nor had China to us. A difference that outraged some Americans is that they viewed it as “fair game” to do espionage on military and political secrets. The Chinese however, in addition to that, did much industrial spying on American commercial innovations and manufacturing techniques. The French and the South Koreans, however, had been doing this for years, and American politicians were careful not to make a public issue about it and try to minimize it with diplomacy. However, all this makes a solution hard to come by as Liebenthal explained in his quotation.