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| Cristóbal Schmal |
作者：格雷格・奥斯汀 2013年02月21日
伦敦——奥巴马总统在2月12日的国情咨文演讲中表达了他对网络间谍活动的严重担忧，称这些活动是“我们的敌人”所为。就在他发表此次演讲的两天前，从一份美国情报评估报告泄露出的信息显示，中国再次被称为是网络领域最严重的威胁。
奥巴马的一些顾问建议采取严厉措施来向中国发出明确信号，要求它改变行事方式。但即使美国方面发起报复，中国也不太可能如他们所希望的那样进行回应。不管美国做何行动，这种间谍活动还将持续，并有可能进一步增加。
对中国间谍活动最主要的两大控诉之一便是，私人组织和政府组织都在大规模地窃取西方企业的设计机密。
这种窃取知识产权的行为违反了中国的法律和已经实行了十几年的国际条约承诺。考虑到中国在其历史上的大部分时期都没有类似的法律，它最近做出的履行承诺的努力是巨大的。但是在中国有一个笑话，说美国企业到中国的法庭上打知识产权的官司都会以败诉告终。
在这个极其令人不快的时期，美中在防御网络间谍活动上的双边合作，几乎到了尽头。
第二个主要控诉有别于知识产权窃取，它让我们更清楚地看到，在这次关于网络威胁的不断激化的外交对峙中，中国面临着怎样的风险。美国指控，中国正在以充满敌意的战略意图积极地渗入美国的重要信息基础设施。
奥巴马政府称，中国通过多种网络探测手段占据了美国一些重要基础设施信息网络的内部位置，这样一来，中国就能在两国因台湾问题而将要产生军事冲突时对这些机构进行干扰。
在中国的间谍活动策划者看来，这样的行动与美国对中国军事和基础设施进行的应急计划以及网络行动别无二致。在未经证实的关于美国1999年攻击塞尔维亚供电系统和电话系统的报告浮出水面之后，中国军事分析人士和领导人就一直在研究美国如何对重要基础设施进行网络攻击。
中国方面的观点还受到领导层的影响，中国领导人严重依赖情报机构和武装部队来维护政治稳定，这些人是间谍活动的主要实施者。
但中国不认为美国会指望中国方面从原则上放弃其军方的网络间谍活动。中方会争辩，既然美国在这么做，中国也应该这样做。中国坚信这样的理念，即在信息时代的军事准备方面，一个国家必须能够在能力允许的情况下动用网络资产来破坏敌方军事活动所依靠的基础设施。去年11月，中国领导层宣布，中国会加快以军事为目的的信息技术的发展。
对中国的军事顾问来说，证明他们的观点很容易。如今，美国自己都在积极推进针对基础设施的攻击性的网络活动，为什么中国要放弃它非破坏性的针对此类目标的应急行动？
他们会说，伊朗的重要基础设施在和平年代遭到来自震网(Stuxnet)的直接、非法的蓄意攻击，而美国就是行动的主要策划者。中国自己的评估指出，它的网络战能力（和信息窃取不同）和美国相比简直是小巫见大巫。一些美国军方前高级官员也认同这种评估。
中国的军事策划者认为，只有在中美两国因台湾问题而即将发生大规模的军事冲突时，中方才会对美国的重要基础设施发动网络攻击。美国没有同等的自信，其担忧也是合理的，中国的回应是形成自中国自己的这种认识。
美国混淆了知识产权窃取和国家安全威胁这两个不同的控诉，这对美国的立场毫无助益。出现这一混淆是因为美国的一些人认为，中国有明确的政策来通过大规模的网络间谍活动侵蚀美国的国家经济实力。这被认为是经济战的一种形式——很多美国分析人士不同意这种观点。
确实，中国有这样一项政策，即不惜一切手段（包括秘密收集情报）来发展科技，从而增强其经济实力。毕竟，中国还需应对美国针对中国的高科技出口禁令。但中国官方称——大多数外国经济学家也表示同意——中国能从稳定活跃的美国经济中获得大量既得利益。
美国方面有充分而迫切的原因来说：网络空间需要战略层面的稳定性。要和中国这位绕不开的合作伙伴一起实现这个目标，美国需要就网络间谍活动提出比从前更合理的说法，与这样一个互相连接、互相依存的数字世界的愿景更为合拍。
格雷格・奥斯汀(Greg Austin)是东西方研究所(EastWest Institute)的政策创新主任。
翻译：陶梦萦
翻译：陶梦萦
——纽约时报
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
China Won't Cut Its Cyberspying
February 21, 2013
Cristóbal Schmal
LONDON — President Obama registered his serious concern in the State of the Union address over cyberespionage by what he called “our enemies.” His remarks on Feb. 12 came two days after leaks from a U.S. intelligence estimate named China — again — as the most serious menace in the cyberdomain.
Some Obama advisers have recommended harsh action to send a clear signal to China to change its ways. But even if the Americans retaliate, China is unlikely to respond as they might hope. The spying will continue and probably intensify regardless of what the United States does.
One of the two main complaints against China’s espionage is that organizations, both private and governmental, are stealing design secrets from Western corporations on a massive scale.
Such theft of intellectual property rights (I.P.R.) is contrary to China’s domestic law and international treaty commitments in place for more than a decade. Recent efforts by China to honor its commitments have been substantial considering that it had no such laws for most of its history. But there is a joke in China that its courts are where American corporations go to lose I.P.R. cases.
Bilateral cooperation on cyberespionage against each other by the United States and China more or less exhausts itself at this rather unsatisfactory point.
It is the second main complaint — very distinct from I.P.R. theft — that gives a clearer picture of what is at stake for China in this escalating diplomatic confrontation about cyberthreats. This is the charge that China is actively penetrating critical information infrastructure in the United States with hostile strategic intent.
The Obama administration asserts that China, using cyberprobes of various kinds, is occupying certain positions inside the information networks of some critical U.S. infrastructure so that it can interfere with it if a military confrontation over Taiwan became imminent.
To planners in China, such activity would be seen as no different from the sort of contingency planning and cyberoperations the United States undertakes toward Chinese military and infrastructure targets. Chinese military analysts and leaders have been studying the United States’ use of cyberattacks against critical infrastructure ever since unconfirmed reports surfaced of U.S. attacks in 1999 against Serbia’s electricity supply and telephone system.
China’s view is also colored by the leadership’s heavy dependence for political stability on the intelligence services and armed forces, the main perpetrators of the espionage.
Yet there is disbelief in China that the United States would expect it to make a principled rejection of military cyberespionage. The Chinese would argue that the United States is doing it, and so should China. There is commitment in China to the idea that in terms of military preparedness in the Information Age, a country has to be able to use cyberassets, if it can, to disable adversary infrastructure on which a military campaign might depend. Last November, the Chinese leadership announced it would hasten the development of information technology for military purposes.
Military advisers in China have an easy case to make. Why should China abandon its nonlethal, contingency operations related to possible cyberattacks on critical infrastructure where the United States itself now is vigorously pursuing offensive cyberoptions?
The United States, they will say, is the principal architect of a direct and unlawfulsabotage attack on the critical infrastructure of Iran in peacetime through Stuxnet. Internal assessments in China paint its cyberwar capability (as opposed to its information siphoning) relative to that of the United States as basic versus advanced. This assessment is shared by some former senior U.S. military officials.
Chinese military planners believe that they would only launch a cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of an imminent large scale military clash with the United States over Taiwan. While Americans cannot have equal confidence, and their concern is legitimate, it is the Chinese perception that shapes China’s responses.
The American case is not helped by its blurring of the two distinct complaints: I.P.R. theft and national security threats. This confusion comes about because some in the United States have assessed that China has an explicit policy of eroding American national economic power through large-scale cyberespionage. This is presented as a form of economic warfare — an argument that many American analysts dispute.
It is true that China has a policy of using any means available — including covert intelligence collection — to improve its own technology and, through that, its economic power. After all, it has to get around U.S. high-technology export bans in place for China. But Chinese officials say — and most foreign economists agree — that China has a huge vested interest in the stability and vitality of the U.S. economy.
The United States has a good and urgent cause to argue for: strategic stability in cyberspace. To work toward that goal with China as an unavoidable partner, the United States will need to make arguments about cyberspying that fit more sensibly than they have so far into a vision of the interconnected, interdependent digital world.
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