By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal
Chinese authorities are being urged to detain NSA leaker Edward Snowden and pump him for information by a newspaper closely connected to the Communist Party of China.
Whether they do or not, the ChiComs are already getting propaganda mileage out of Snowden.
From the Global Times:
Edward Snowden, the man who blew the whistle on the American National Security Agency’s PRISM project, has claimed that the US has been hacking servers in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong for years. The Chinese diplomatic department should explicitly demand a reasonable explanation from the US government.
Snowden has turned out to be a hot potato, posing a challenge for Beijing. Whether the Chinese government agrees to extradite Snowden back to the US will directly impact their bilateral relationship, which has seen a good start after the Xi-Obama meeting.
But a positive relationship should not prevent Beijing from being dynamic and fact-oriented when dealing with specific conflicts. Snowden’s revelation about US cyber attacks on Hong Kong and mainland networks is closely related to Chinese national interests. The Chinese government should acquire more solid information from Snowden if he has it, and use it as evidence to negotiate with the US.
Such acts will not harm the Sino-American relationship, as one can assume that the US would do the same to China. This proves the flexibility of their bilateral relationship.
Snowden is a political offender against the US, but what he is doing benefits the world. His actions test, rather than disturb, the bilateral ties.
Public opinion will turn against China’s central government and the Hong Kong SAR government if they choose to send him back.
Snowden’s exposure has upgraded our understanding of cyberspace, especially cyber attacks from the US, which is probably a much sharper weapon than its traditional military force. This weapon has demonstrated the US’ hypocrisy and arrogance. Besides Snowden’s disclosure, it is still unknown what else the US, a country which once condemned China for cyber attacks, has done to China.
The US is accumulating all the advanced powers of the Internet to forge a state-level “fist” in order to launch cyber attacks on other countries. The unparalleled power of this “fist” is beyond our imagination, which should be an alarm bell for us to catch up with the development of the Internet. Our focus should be fixed on grasping the core technology of the Internet industry in the future.
Despite the foolishness (or worse) of what Snowden has done, I’ll actually feel sorry for him if the ChiComs do get their hooks into him.
It’s time to confront China’s role in 9/11.
Senior Chinese diplomat visits Taliban chief in Afghanistan December 13,
2000 Islamabad Deutsche Presse-Agentur The Chinese ambassador in Pakistan, Lu
Shulin, held talks with the Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar in
Kandahar on Tuesday, raising the contacts between the two sides to a new
high, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) agency reported Wednesday.. AIP said
China acquired U.S. cruise missile technology from the Taliban, which passed
on the unexploded missiles from the U.S. attack in 1998 on suspected bin
Laden camps in Afghanistan. The news agency said the Afghan people expect
China to veto the U.S.-Russian resolution in the Security Council because it
also seeks an arms embargo exclusively against the Taliban, assuring
continued supplies to its opponents who are supported by the anti-Taliban
nations.
The First World Hacker War By CRAIG S. SMITH NY Times May 13, 2001 After
last month’s collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese jet, hackers in
the United States and China began defacing Web sites on both sides of the
Pacific. Then Chinese hackers, led by a group called the Honkers Union,
declared war.