While Russia gets most of the attention for its disinformation and cyber hacking efforts against the U.S., Communist China has its own growing effort.
And it is a far bigger long-term threat.
First, let’s say the communist Chinese (Chicoms), and their intelligence service and affiliated groups, have likely hacked the U.S. across the board more than any other country or entity on Earth. (RELATED: How Communist China’s Tentacles Reach Into US State Politics – And How to Fight Back)
They have a vacuum cleaner approach to spying, sucking up everything in sight, including what appears to be trivial and innocuous information, up to highly encrypted classified data.
Both are considered valuable.
The former simply adds up to provide reams of information on the U.S. and its citizens, including ways to extort or compromise just about anyone. (RELATED: Ban China’s TikTok at Critical US Agencies)
The latter encrypted data is being held by China until they develop quantum computing capabilities to break our encryption.
Recall the Office of Personnel Management Office (OPM) hack that gave China thousands of detailed background investigations for Americans with sensitive security clearances.
The Chicoms also hack American industry and federal, local and state governments.
Nothing is off limits, and China devotes massive resources to its espionage efforts. (RELATED: It’s Time for American Businesses to Leave Communist China)
CNN recently reported:
An elite Chinese hacking group with ties to operatives indicted by a US grand jury in 2020 has surged its activity this year, targeting sensitive data held by companies and government agencies in the US and dozens of other countries, according to an expert at consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The findings highlight the biggest cyber-espionage challenge facing the Biden administration: combating a Chinese hacking program that the FBI has called more prolific than that of all other governments in the world combined.
But now there is also a growing concern over Chinese disinformation campaigns to sow discord and dissent and influence U.S. elections.
As Wired reports:
Now, the People’s Republic of China—or, at least, a group with a long-running pro-Chinese government agenda—seems to be trying out its own political influence operation just ahead of this year’s US midterm elections.
And while that operation seems to have largely failed this time, the campaign represents the growing boldness of a new adversary in the fight against organized disinformation.
On Wednesday, cybersecurity and threat intelligence firm Mandiant published new findings about a group it calls Dragonbridge, which it’s seen for years promoting pro-Chinese interests in fake grassroots social media campaigns designed to influence politics in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Now, Mandiant’s analysts have tied Dragonbridge to a series of more US-focused influence campaigns.
The group claimed that a notorious hacking spree carried out by known Chinese state-sponsored hackers was actually carried out by US intelligence, falsely blamed the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline on the US government, and—perhaps most brazenly—seeded hundreds of posts on social media designed to demoralize voters and reduce turnout ahead of the November midterms.
“This actor has been rapidly growing and hyper-aggressive. They went from carrying out limited campaigns focused on Hong Kong to a global operation on dozens of platforms,” says John Hultquist, Mandiant’s VP of intelligence analysis.
“Interfering in our elections is just another line that they’re clearly willing to cross.”
Wired concludes:
If Dragonbridge is working directly for the Chinese government, it may mark a new phase in China’s use of disinformation. In the past, China has largely stayed away from influence operations.
A Director of National Intelligence report on foreign threats to the 2020 election declassified last year stated that China “considered but did not deploy influence efforts designed to change the outcome of the US Presidential election.”
With leader-for-life Xi Jinping now firmly entrenched in Beijing, expect China to become far more aggressive in its spying, hacking and influence campaigns moving into 2023 and 2024.
Also, expect China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) to become much better at its disinformation against Americans. ALD
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Been pro Chinese since Trumps first campaign
We’re in a Cold War with China that they’ve already won and most Americans are ignorant because the Politicians want them to be or, like the Biden’s, are being paid to be silent. In fact, Biden is so weak, feckless and compromised to China that they can threaten the U.S. and Biden says nothing! Probably because of the eleven million dollars he and his son got in an illegal “pay for play” deal from a Chinese energy company when he was VP.
80% of our pharmaceutical ingredients come from China as well as most of our antibiotics, most of the lithium battery market and virtually all of our solar panels, Most of our computer chips (that are vital for everything from our military equipment, cars, obviously computers, infrastructure and even all our appliances, come from either China or Taiwan. There are over 300,000 Chinese students in American Universities (getting advanced degrees in science and technology, (not gender studies) where many end up employed in our government or defense industries and are obligated, by Chinese law, to spy for the CCP if asked. The Chinese are allowed to buy huge amounts of American farmland and whatever corporations they want. Smithfield ham (which was America’s largest pork producer) is now owned by the Chinese. Eric Swalwell (who is on the House
intelligence committee”) slept with a Chinese spy and was never investigated or suffered any consequences. Diane Feinstein had a Chinese spy on her staff for twenty years with no investigation or consequence.China is constantly increasing its military capabilities including hypersonic missiles that we don’t even have. Their army is way larger than ours and now so is their Navy. We can’t even meet 70% of our recruiting goals for all the armed forces, yet we are about to discharge a hundred thousand (included elite Navy SEALS and Army Rangers) because they aren’t vaccinated. Meanwhile we are teaching CRT to soldiers and in recruiting ads, they are painting “rainbow bullets” on Marine helmets. The Chinese are rolling on the ground laughing.
Meanwhile, our government ignores the biggest threat and sends all of our military hardware (that they didn’t abandon to the Taliban) and endless billions (74 billion so far) to the corrupt government of Ukraine. Biden says that we will continue sending billions “for as long as it takes” to fight a proxy war to oust Putin that we didn’t want, was never in our national security interest, didn’t vote on, can’t win, and could even possibly start WWIII. Even though Putin was never our biggest threat and we act as if the 30 NATO member nations wouldn’t be enough to stop Putin if he decided to attack the west. In fact, we provoked Putin by pushing Ukraine to join NATO even though they were always an eastern bloc nation and part of Russia before the USSR collapsed. And, oh yeah, all the Democrats and the war mongering Republicans (like Lindsey Graham and Liz Cheney) shout we must “protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity” while we have exactly zero sovereignty with a completely open border that lets in millions of unvaccinated illegals including criminals, cartels, terrorists (90 caught so far) and the Chinese made fentanyl that kills 173 American citizens every single day.
Trump talked about all of the above and was spot on and that’s why they’ve tried to destroy him and call all of his supporters “fascists”. We are in the most dangerous place in our foreign policy that we have ever been. Have you had enough yet America?