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11. Gaming public opinion: The CCP’s increasingly sophisticated cyber-enabled influence operations

Author:
Albert Zhang, Tilla Hoja, and Jasmine Latimore
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) embrace of large-scale online influence operations and spreading of disinformation on Western social-media platforms has escalated since the first major attribution from Silicon Valley companies in 2019. While Chinese public diplomacy may have shifted to a softer tone in 2023 after many years of wolf-warrior online rhetoric, the Chinese Government continues to conduct global covert cyber-enabled influence operations. Those operations are now more frequent, increasingly sophisticated and increasingly effective in supporting the CCP’s strategic goals. They focus on disrupting the domestic, foreign, security and defence policies of foreign countries, and most of all they target democracies. Currently—in targeted democracies—most political leaders, policymakers, businesses, civil society groups and publics have little understanding of how the CCP currently engages in clandestine activities online in their countries, even though this activity is escalating and evolving quickly. The stakes are high for democracies, given the indispensability of the internet and their reliance on open online spaces, free from interference. Despite years of monitoring covert CCP cyber-enabled influence operations by social-media platforms, governments, and research institutes such as ASPI, definitive public attribution of the actors driving these activities is rare. Covert online operations, by design, are difficult to detect and attribute to state actors. Social-media platforms and governments struggle to devote adequate resources to identifying, preventing and deterring increasing levels of malicious activity, and sometimes they don’t want to name and shame the Chinese Government for political, economic and/or commercial reasons.
Topic:
Public Opinion, Cybersecurity, Social Media, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Political Geography:
China and Asia

12. Digital China: The Strategy and Its Geopolitical Implications

Author:
David Dorman and John Hemmings
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
Over the past few years, there has been growing concern inside the United States, Europe, and in the Indo-Pacific on the strategic direction behind China’s technology policies. Beginning with the debate over 5G and Huawei, this debate has covered Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum teachnology, and semi-conductors – a foundational technology. And despite a large number of policies in place – Made in China: 2025, Cyber Super Power, and the New Generation AI Development Plan – few in the West have known China’s overall digital grand strategy. In the first installment of a three-part research project, Dr. Dorman and Dr. Hemmings lay out the rise of China’s overall digital grand strategy, Xi’s role in it, and how it has been organized to fulfil Party objectives. The report tracks the rise of the strategy over the past 10 years, the acceleration of that rise during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the current state of the strategy. In particular, it finds Digital China has been supported and designed by General Secretary Xi Jinping himself, and is a bid to make China more competitive vis a vis the West through the digital transformation of rules, institutions, and infrastructure at the national level. Over the past few years, the strategy has risen to become the “overall” strategy for digital development in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, bigger than the Digital Silk Road, deeper than the Belt and Road Initiative, more far reaching than 5G or AI, more important than Made in China: 2025, and wider than Cyber Great Power. A renewed Digital China seeks to challenge a hegemonic global system anchored to a previous age. A successful Digital China has profound implications for China’s developmental path, great power competition, and for the norms that will undergird the international system for decades to come. The Party leadership has re-written Marxist economic theory in its bid to incorporate “data” as the basis of its digital economy and in order to foster a Chinese “Digital Marxism”. Digital China seeks to whet the “sharp weapon” of innovation to facilitate its great power rise and challenge to the West. Beijing is testing whether innovative thinking can be created through the digital transformation of tools, talent, and learning. The US and its allies have begun to effect strategic counter-effect to the myriad of PRC technology policies, there is almost zero understanding or public discussion of this digital grand strategy. Whether inattention, mistranslation, or obfuscation, Digital China has been mostly missed by the West over the past decade.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Innovation, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Indo-Pacific

13. Allies Help Those Who Help Themselves: How Estonia and Japan Approach Deterrence

Author:
Yoko Iwama, Tetsuo Kotani, Sugio Takahashi, Tony Lawrence, and Henrik Praks
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
Up until the blatant act of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2022, the West had been gradually shifting its attention towards East Asia, with China seen as the primary challenge of the first half of the 21st century. The new context requires a thorough reassessment of international security architecture by all national stakeholders. This, in turn, offers Estonia and Japan the opportunity to enrich their security perspectives on common strategic threats, as well as on broader geopolitical shifts caused by Russia and China. This report introduces several aspects of these revolutionary developments, their background, and their potential implications, some of which have already been reflected in the updated strategic documents unveiled by US and Japanese defence communities. Taken together, these documents make a case for an enhanced partnership between Japan, the US, and Europe that would prepare like-minded allies to respond to any security crisis. In the eventuality of a crisis resulting in an actual military confrontation, the report compares China’s missile supremacy and Japan’s long-range standoff maritime firepower strategies by grounding this analysis in the theory of victory. Charting a more favourable course forward, the report assesses the current state of deterrence in the Baltics by detailing the key developments in regional defence posture and planning, with a clear shift towards forward defence. Centring on emerging cross-border risks posed by hybrid warfare and using Estonia as a case study for vulnerabilities, the report proposes ways to mitigate these risks by advancing the role of deterrence. The report’s recommendations are as follows: To establish a cooperative format between NATO and Indo-Pacific nations along the lines of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership and Cooperation Council and open NATO’s liaison office in Japan. To create the Baltic-Japan security and defence 1.5 Track dialogue forum. To develop ties between the defence intelligence services of Estonia and Japan in order to better understand the threats posed by Russia and China. To facilitate networking in the fields of concept development, capability planning, doctrine, and military education to address the challenges of multi-domain operations. To explore possibilities for closer defence industrial cooperation and technology sharing between Estonia and Japan in cyber security, artificial intelligence, sensorics, robotics, and electronic warfare. To engage Estonia’s knowledge and experience when adopting NATO’s standards and practices in Japan’s future capability development in pursuit of interoperability. To hold joint exercises in integrated air and missile defence, coastal defence, critical undersea infrastructure protection, etc. As Japan seeks to forge closer defence relations with Europe and European nations and enhance their defence ties with the democracies in the Indo-Pacific area, the need to understand better how cooperation between Estonia and Japan contributes to the emerging Euro-Pacific deterrence agenda will persist.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, European Union, Cybersecurity, Deterrence, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Ukraine, Taiwan, Asia, and Estonia

14. Europe’s Indo-Pacific Tilt: Estonian and Japanese Interests

Author:
Frank Jüris, Steven Blockmans, Kazuto Suzuki, Sanshiro Hosaka, and Maret Nukke
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
Reshaped by the new great power competition, the international order has been undergoing revolutionary transformations. Revanchist Russia has unleashed a barbarian war against a sovereign European nation, while increasingly militarised and contentious China looms as a not-so-insidious threat in the Indo-Pacific. In response to these shifting dynamics and mounting geopolitical tensions, Europe is now awakening to the new reality and paying greater attention to the far-away region. At first glance, Estonia and Japan may seem like odd partners, yet they share vital commonalities and common interests impossible to ignore. Amidst Russia’s ongoing brutal invasion of Ukraine and China’s territorial claims over Taiwan, Japan’s strong advocacy in the Indo-Pacific region confirms how essential unity, consensus, and solidarity are for tackling global challenges in an environment of limited resources. This report brings together foreign and security policy experts to improve our understanding of each other’s security concerns — be it threats in cyber and information space, ruptures in trade, energy, and food, or authoritarian neighbours — by taking a step closer to a shared threat perception. Acknowledging unprecedented challenges to global security and rules-based order that democracy and democracies are confronted with from East to West, this report critically examines whether the European Union’s regional strategy maximises and realises the union’s full potential in the Indo-Pacific, which will test its actorness and agency and determine the role for the decades — if not centuries — to come. As the long-distance race for technological hegemony between the U.S. and China — of which Japan and Estonia are by far neither neutral nor casual observers — tightens, the report highlights national policies and capabilities needed to stay competitive, as well as to reduce known and potential vulnerabilities, from the perspective of economic security. China’s dramatic rise — as not only an economic but also a military superpower — entails an assertive and oftentimes assailing foreign policy that is felt both in Europe and the Indo-Pacific alike. The authoritarian regime in Beijing cleverly exploits the vacuum of power wherever it finds any. Cautioning against repeating the old mistakes of China-centrism, the report advocates for fostering multifaced cooperation with Japan in the framework of EU-Japan and Estonia-Japan relations. Thus, the report recommends that the EU as a whole and its individual member states should continue building on the positive momentum generated by the Indo-Pacific strategies and modify their approach to incorporate like-minded partners. From freedom of information to information- and cybersecurity, the report reminds us that leadership matters. It explains the changing tides in the Japanese mainstream public opinions that have already washed away the decades of harmful Russia-centrism from media, academia, and corridors of power and thus resulted in a society successfully resisting malign foreign disinformation campaigns. Estonia and Japan should facilitate digital transformation beyond their national borders, promote economic security, and exert geopolitical power through domestically produced sophisticated technology. The report also probes Sino-Russian relations from the perspective of Chinese strategic interests in its own neighbourhood. Able to contain the West by redirecting its focus and resources towards the war in Ukraine, Russia creates additional operation space for China in the Taiwan Strait. With the war raging In Europe, it should be clear that appeasing an aggressor with concessions and seemingly clever compromises only emboldens the latter, making it even more contentious in both territorial claims and bellicose actions. To prevent a conflict from breaking out in the Taiwan Strait, the EU should be building up allied immunity by counterbalancing China in the Indo-Pacific and proactively defending the rules-based world order.
Topic:
Defense Policy, European Union, Cybersecurity, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), ASEAN, and Economic Security
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, Europe, Ukraine, Taiwan, Asia, Estonia, and Indo-Pacific

15. Naval Incident Management in Europe, East Asia and South East Asia

Author:
Ian Anthony, Fei Su, and Lora Saalman
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:
Unprecedented global turbulence in 2022 has demonstrated the need to pay increased attention to naval operations. Enhanced military capability allows naval power projection far beyond home waters. New threats and challenges are emerging from technological advances and new applications, not least the vulnerability of warships and naval facilities to cyber intrusions and cyberattacks. As states implement the programmes they need to protect and promote their interests at sea, there is also likely to be an increase in the number of close tracking incidents. How effective current risk reduction mechanisms will be at dealing with incidents at sea is unclear. This Insights Paper provides a preliminary assessment of the existing mechanisms and suggests areas for further improvement.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Navy, Crisis Management, and Military
Political Geography:
Europe, East Asia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

16. Cyber Crossover and Its Escalatory Risks for Europe

Author:
Lora Saalman, Fei Su, and Larisa Saveleva Dovgal
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:
The crossover between cybercrime and cyberwarfare has intensified in recent years, particularly against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and mounting tensions between China, Russia and the United States. This paper delves into specific cyber incidents that employ cybercrime tactics with cyberwarfare objectives, allegedly involving Chinese, Russian or US actors. It examines responses within and among the private sector, the public sector and international forums. Although not directly involved in all of the cases, the European Union (EU) was impacted in a variety of ways, including as a result of spillover effects and intentional targeting. Drawing on an examination of cyber incidents, this paper highlights how emerging trends in actors, means and responses present escalatory risks for the EU and emphasizes the pressing need to bolster cybersecurity measures.
Topic:
European Union, Cybersecurity, Conflict, Risk, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, Asia, and United States of America

17. U.S.-China Data War Intensifies as Bilateral Relations Nosedive

Author:
Willy Wo-Lap Lam
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
China Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
U.S.-China relations appear headed for further deterioration despite the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) efforts to lure back American multinationals and Beijing’s relatively limited support for Russia in its war with Ukraine. Washington has characterized the “existential competition” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an entrenched struggle on all fronts, but the data and information sectors have recently become areas of particularly intense contention. The Xi Jinping leadership has sternly retaliated against purported efforts by the U.S. and its allies to choke off the PRC’s high-tech development pathways. Recent moves targeting American and other foreign firms are also closely linked to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s obsession with cybersecurity and control of data. Last weekend, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the administrative arm of the policy-setting Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (CCAC) that Xi chairs, announced an investigation into the operations of leading American memory-chip maker Micron Technology. The CAC cited the need to safeguard the supply chains of Chinese IT and data companies. Regardless, Micron, whose China operations account for 11 percent of worldwide sales, has insisted that it “stands by the security of our products” (Straits Times, April 1; South China Morning Post [SCMP], March 31).
Topic:
Bilateral Relations, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Data Governance
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

18. China’s AI Regulations and How They Get Made

Author:
Matt Sheehan
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
China is in the midst of rolling out some of the world’s earliest and most detailed regulations governing artificial intelligence (AI). These include measures governing recommendation algorithms—the most omnipresent form of AI deployed on the internet—as well as new rules for synthetically generated images and chatbots in the mold of ChatGPT. China’s emerging AI governance framework will reshape how the technology is built and deployed within China and internationally, impacting both Chinese technology exports and global AI research networks. But in the West, China’s regulations are often dismissed as irrelevant or seen purely through the lens of a geopolitical competition to write the rules for AI. Instead, these regulations deserve careful study on how they will affect China’s AI trajectory and what they can teach policymakers around the world about regulating the technology. Even if countries fundamentally disagree on the specific content of a regulation, they can still learn from each other when it comes to the underlying structures and technical feasibility of different regulatory approaches. In this series of three papers, I will attempt to reverse engineer Chinese AI governance. I break down the regulations into their component parts—the terminology, key concepts, and specific requirements—and then trace those components to their roots, revealing how Chinese academics, bureaucrats, and journalists shaped the regulations. In doing so, we have built a conceptual model of how China makes AI governance policy, one that can be used to project the future trajectory of Chinese AI governance (see figure 1). China’s three most concrete and impactful regulations on algorithms and AI are its 2021 regulation on recommendation algorithms, the 2022 rules for deep synthesis (synthetically generated content), and the 2023 draft rules on generative AI. Information control is a central goal of all three measures, but they also contain many other notable provisions. The rules for recommendation algorithms bar excessive price discrimination and protect the rights of workers subject to algorithmic scheduling. The deep synthesis regulation requires conspicuous labels be placed on synthetically generated content. And the draft generative AI regulation requires both the training data and model outputs to be “true and accurate,” a potentially insurmountable hurdle for AI chatbots to clear. All three regulations require developers to make a filing to China’s algorithm registry, a newly built government repository that gathers information on how algorithms are trained, as well as requiring them to pass a security self-assessment. Structurally, the regulations hold lessons for policymakers abroad. By rolling out a series of more targeted AI regulations, Chinese regulators are steadily building up their bureaucratic know-how and regulatory capacity. Reusable regulatory tools like the algorithm registry can act as regulatory scaffolding that can ease the construction of each successive regulation, a particularly useful step as China prepares to draft a national AI law in the years ahead. Examining the roots of these regulations also grants insight into the key intellectual and bureaucratic players shaping Chinese AI governance. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is the clear bureaucratic leader in governance to date, but that position may grow more tenuous as the focus of regulation moves beyond the CAC’s core competency of online content controls. The Ministry of Science and Technology is another key player, one that may see its profile rise due to recent government restructuring and increased focus on regulating underlying AI research. Feeding into this bureaucratic rulemaking are several think tanks and scholars, notably the China Academy for Information Communications Technology and Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI International Governance. In the years ahead, China will continue rolling out targeted AI regulations and laying the groundwork for a capstone national AI law. Any country, company, or institution that hopes to compete against, cooperate with, or simply understand China’s AI ecosystem must examine these moves closely. The subsequent papers in this series will dig into the details of these regulations and how they came about, deepening understanding of Chinese AI governance to date and giving a preview of what is likely coming around the bend.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Regulation, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
China and Asia

19. U.S.-ROK Strategy for Enhancing Cooperation on Combating and Deterring Cyber-Enabled Financial Crime

Author:
Jason Bartlett
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
The May 2022 U.S.-ROK Summit between President Joe Biden and President Yoon Suk-yeol revitalized previous bilateral commitments to establish a joint cyber working group to address the growing issue of cyber-enabled financial crime with specific emphasis on cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and illicit North Korean cyber activity.1 This report provides specific policy recommendations for Washington and Seoul to incorporate within the cyber working group to enhance cooperation on combating and deterring cyber-enabled financial crime, especially from state-sponsored actors. North Korea has become the greatest state-sponsored threat to the global financial services sector. From 2021 to June 2022 alone, North Korean cyber operatives and their facilitators stole more than $1 billion (in U.S. currency, as throughout this report unless otherwise indicated) in digital assets through hacking cryptocurrency exchanges and laundering the stolen funds using various financial technologies and obfuscation techniques, including cryptocurrency mixers and foreign over-the-counter brokers. Pyongyang will likely maintain this position as long as the potential gains of cyber operations against financial services are greater than the potential risks and resources needed to conduct these operations. Washington and Seoul must work together to change this reality. This report compiles the findings of a year-long research project to generate actionable policy recommendations for Washington and Seoul to incorporate within their joint cyber working group to strengthen joint deterrence against state-sponsored cyber-enabled financial crime that continues to target both U.S. and South Korean social, financial, and cyber infrastructure. Based on intensive field research and interviews with U.S. and ROK stakeholders, this report outlines current challenges to enhancing U.S.-ROK cyber coordination, details the evolution of North Korea’s cyber program and modern-day threats, provides policy recommendations for the joint cyber working group, and includes an appendix with all relevant U.S. and ROK agencies that can contribute valuable expertise to the group.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Cybersecurity, and Financial Crimes
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

20. Following the Crypto: Using Blockchain Analysis to Assess the Strengths and Vulnerabilities of North Korean Hackers

Author:
Jason Bartlett
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
Under heavy and sustained pressure from decades of economic sanctions, North Korea has rapidly expanded its illicit activity within the cyber domain. In particular, Pyongyang has demonstrated an increasing interest in using evolving financial platforms, such as cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, to compensate for the fiscal losses related to economic sanctions on more traditional forms of commercial activity. Since 2014, the Pyongyang-led cybercrime organization known as the Lazarus Group has transformed from a rogue team of hackers to a masterful army of cybercriminals and foreign affiliates, capable of compromising major national financial networks and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of virtual assets. The international community and national governments often incorrectly correlate North Korea’s lack of access to modern computer hardware within its borders to its ability to successfully execute software-reliant cyberattacks. While Beijing and Moscow captivate the attention of most democratic governments concerned about pending cyber intrusions, Pyongyang continues to defy miscalculated expectations by successfully employing myriad sophisticated cyberattacks that target new and developing financial technology. North Korea will likely continue to adapt its cybercrime tactics targeting cryptocurrency to circumvent obstacles presented by economic sanctions on more traditional forms of financial activity and commerce. This report provides in-depth analysis of North Korea’s demonstrated ability to exploit financial technologies, in particular cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, to procure funds for its illicit nuclear and ballistic weapons development programs. This research was supported through blockchain analysis conducted in partnership with TRM Labs, a leading blockchain intelligence firm that seeks to monitor, investigate, and mitigate crypto fraud and financial crime. Through analyzing three case studies of major North Korean hacks, this report outlines key strengths and vulnerabilities in the Lazarus Group’s campaigns to infiltrate cryptocurrency exchanges and steal, launder, and liquidate funds. The report also provides a snapshot of key policy oversights within the regulatory environment in the crypto space of central stakeholders and countries, such as China, the United States, and South Korea. Lastly, this study offers a prospective look into the future of North Korea–led crypto hacks and provides a series of policy recommendations to strengthen cyber resilience against these efforts.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Sanctions, Cybersecurity, and Blockchain
Political Geography:
Asia and North Korea