Correspondence: Debating the Chinese Cyber Threat

Abstract

In “The Impact of China on Cybersecurity: Fiction and Friction,” Jon Lindsay asserts that the threat of Chinese cyber operations, though “relentlessly irritating,” is greatly exaggerated; that China has more to fear from U.S. cyber operations than the United States does from China; and that U.S.-China relations are reasonably stable.1 He claims that “[o]verlap across political, intelligence, military, and institutional threat narratives … can lead to theoretical confusion” (p. 44). In focusing almost exclusively on military-to-military operations, however, where he persuasively argues that the United States retains a significant qualitative advantage, Lindsay underemphasizes the significance of vulnerabilities in U.S. civilian networks to the exercise of national power, and he draws broad conclusions that have doubtful application in circumstances short of a full-out armed conflict with China. In addition, he does not discuss subthreshold conflicts that characterize, and are likely to continue to characterize, this symbiotic but strife-ridden relationship.