Cybercrime and Cybersecurity in China

Abstract

For various reasons, China provides an ideal laboratory to study, observe, document and understand diverse aspects of cybercrimes originating from and affecting the Global South (GS) including the associated contexts, mechanisms and processes. Consistent with the global trend, cybercrimes associated with China are rapidly escalating. Over the past few years, the popular press has routinely published stories and accounts that characterize China as the global centre for political, industrial and economic espionage activities. In a November 2011 report, the US counterintelligence chief called China as “the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage”. Some estimates suggest that over 2,000 companies, universities and government agencies experienced cyberattacks allegedly originated from China in the 2000s (Riley, 2012). It was reported that when some DuPont employees were on a business trip to China, they found that their laptops were implanted with spyware although they were locked in a hotel safe (Riley and Stone, 2011). Some Western analysts observe that the lack of a business environment to support innovations in the country makes it attractive to acquire technologies by economic espionage. US intelligence officials have argued that China-originated cyberattacks such as intellectual property (IP) and trade secret thefts would have long-term rather than immediate short-term effects with substantial economic damage.