The news is getting so common that it is hardly news anymore. Chinese espionage is becoming a major threat for Western security. If we are to believe stories and reports, Beijing is spying on us in every possible way, while trying to reshape our culture.
The dragon’s manual has it all: spooks, operatives, agents, paid media, hackers, platforms, bots and more make up a vast network with capabilities that are difficult to assess adequately. US authorities have even accused China of employing technology on harbour cranes to collect information illegally .
In Europe last year, arrests were made in a number of countries where Europeans or Chinese nationals have been accused of spying for China. Germany, where a European Parliament aide to an AfD MEP was arrested, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Poland saw such cases make the news high-profile.
In the US, last week a bipartisan group of lawmakers asked AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Lumen Technologies to answer questions after a report by the Wall Street Journal said that Chinese hackers had breached the networks of American broadband providers.
According to the WSJ, hackers breached systems used by the federal government for court-authorised wiretapping. The three companies examined by the congressional committee were among those whose networks were compromised.
“There is a growing concern regarding the cybersecurity vulnerabilities embedded in U.S. telecommunications networks”, the lawmakers said.
What is even more worrying is that the telecom companies did not report the intrusion in their systems after they realised it was going on. The hack may have lasted for months, allowing Chinese services to gain access to communications data which the US courts had required from the internet providers.
And while China’s foreign ministry said that it was not aware of the attack described in the report, not all forms of Chinese espionage are covert.
One of the most powerful tools in China’s arsenal is none other than TikTok. After all, China’s information war is not only about collecting data, but also about spreading data – either true or fake – and shaping the Western culture in a way that serves Chinese interests.
No wonder TikTok is so extremely woke. Undermining the Western values and identity in favour of an internationalist, nihilistic agenda weakens societies and turns them into undisciplined and lascivious masses.
Unfortunately, contrary to the US where TikTok faces a total ban – unless it is sold to another owner by ByteDance, its Chinese state-owned mother company – the EU has not yet shown the will to combat China’s intelligence and communication infiltration into Europe.
While the EU has been engaging in a commercial war with China involving tariffs and anti-dumping measures, little has been done in terms of limiting Chinese intelligence and information spreading activity in the Old Continent.
The European Parliament is supposedly very sensitive when it comes to issues of democracy, transparency, fake news and foreign interference in European affairs – but it has not yet taken serious action on this matter.
A resolution calling attention to Beijing’s moles and propaganda and urging Brussels and national governments to deal with the problem would be a good start.
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