Time for the gloves to come off when dealing with China
Canada must do more to combat Beijing’s bellicosity
The
New York Times and The Washington Post published exposés this week detailing wide-ranging attempts by Chinese hackers to penetrate hundreds of Western military, corporate and media computer systems to learn the secret protocols of critical infrastructure such as Canada’s pipelines.
Cyber espionage by China is not new. The difference now is that the kid gloves may finally be coming off.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said 15 months ago that cyber security had become a top national priority because of hostile behaviour by a foreign nation. But the minister declined to directly accuse China, presumably out of concern that the notoriously thin-skinned Communist regime might take offence, thereby harming trade relations. This cautious approach has been mirrored in other Western capitals.
There was little official response after The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for the stealth technologies of the F-35 next-generation fighter jet. As was widely noted when China’s own stealth fighter was unveiled a short time later, it looked a lot like the F-35. There was little reaction 24 months ago when there were news reports that an unnamed foreign country had launched cyber attacks on Canada’s Treasury Board and other government ministries, including National Defence.
It is not only in cyber space that China has been adopting a hostile posture.
“Every day it’s about China. (It) is at the centre of virtually every activity and dispute,” said Capt. James Fanell, deputy chief of staff for intelligence and informa- tion operations for the U.S. Pacific fleet.
By Beijing’s own account, China Marine Surveillance has tripled its patrols in the South China Sea since 2008 as part of a declared policy that the busiest sea lanes in the world are a “Chinese lake.” Fanell bluntly characterized Chinese maritime forces as “a full-time marine sovereignty harassment organization” and that China’s thinking was “what’s mine is mine and we’ll negotiate what’s yours.
“They’re taking control of maritime areas that have never before been administered or controlled in the last 5,000 years by any regime called China.”
China and the Philippines nearly came to blows last year over some rocks known as the Scarborough Shoals. More recently, China has been involved in a dangerous game of military and diplomatic brinkmanship with Japan over another group of contested islands. China also has maritime territorial disputes bubbling with South Korea, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam. The animosities that these cause
“We need China to act like a … responsible stakeholder.”
CAPT. JAMES FANELL
have created an interesting new political dynamic in eastern Asia.
“It was like someone had flipped a diplomatic switch,” Fanell said. “Before 2007 we weren’t particularly popular in east Asia. We had trouble getting port call for our ships and landing per mission for our aircraft. … We now have more places that want our ships than ships to send them.”
While this is flattering, “we don’t need this kind of influence,” he said. “We need a China that is a trusted guarantor of east Asia maritime security, not the mistrusted principal threat it has become. We need China to act like a great nation and a responsible stakeholder.”
Canada has said little publicly about how it is responding to the multiple security challenges posed by an ascendant China and a North Korean regime that might now have intercontinental nuclear missile capability. But Canada has quietly been doing plenty to counter nation-state aggression in Asia.
Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC), which is responsible for all military activity outside Canada, is establishing a cyber staff and there is growing military co-operation with the U.S. on cyber security through NORAD.
Although it attracted almost no attention in Canada, the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force took an unprecedented role in the biggest maritime warfare exercise ever last summer — the biannual RIMPAC or Pacific war games off Honolulu. Nor was there any fanfare last month when Ottawa announced that a Canadian air force general is to be posted to the U.S.’s Pacific Command in Hawaii. There was also little said when a Canadian warship made a rare port call in the Philippines last month.
But Canada could do more. Why—when Canada’s closest ally is moving eastern-based warships to the west coast and has established bases in Australia and the Philippines and when 60 per cent of the world’s population is in Asia — is most of the Canadian navy still based half a world away from the Pacific theatre in Halifax? There is nothing left for these ships to do in the North Atlantic while the Chinese and Indian militaries are on an unprecedented building spree.
Rather than continue to treat the Atlantic fleet as part of a permanent aid package for Nova Scotia, the Harper government should position more naval resources in B.C. It should also consider having its forces participate in more exercises in Australia, the Philippines and northeastern Asia.
A prism through which Canadians might better understand what China is trying to achieve in Asia is the Middle Kingdom’s deepseated cultural belief in dynastic cycles. Both China’s military and the political echelons believe that their county’s rise is inevitable and that it must and will dominate the region.
It is in everyone’s economic interest to encourage greater trade with China. At the same time it is imperative that the West and Canada collaborate with China to establish a long-term code of conduct in the global commons that is the western Pacific.
Canada must also be more candid with the public and with China whenever Beijing’s behaviour in the Pacific and in cyberspace does not meet international norms.