Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...

Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom
59
tendency to seek a simple “yes” or “no” to our inquiry may reflect a mirror-imaging of
societal norms where there are none. From a liberal, democratic point of view, espionage
targeting of another state involves government direction and supervision. It is unnatural
for Westerners to conceive of linkages between state actors and freelance intelligence
operations. It does not conform to our notions of an appropriate relationship.
Henderson argues, however, that this is very probably the type of relationship the
government has formed with the Red Hacker Alliance. Western governments do not
systematically apportion intelligence-gathering roles to non-state actors, even in times of
war. The Chinese government, however, and the People’s Liberation Army in particular
highlight the integration of military and civilian roles even in their contemporary doctrine
of “local war under modern high-tech conditions”:
“In the high-tech local war which we will face in the future, the role of the masses
as the main body of the war is embodied by the country. The great power of the
people’s war is released through comprehensive national power, the combination of
peacetime and war time, the combinations of the military and the civilian, and the
combination of war actions and non-war actions. Besides the direct participation
and cooperation with the army’s operations in the region where war happens, the
masses will support the war.”
China retains the idea of a “people’s war” in which the masses are mobilized to fight
shoulder to shoulder with regular military forces. There is considerable evidence to
suggest that the Red Hacker Alliance will actively engage in targeting Western
organizations - that is, being a non-state actor will not inhibit their participation in attacks
- preemptive or retaliatory.
The question we must ask then, is what form would these freelance intelligence-gathering
operations take? An interview with a hacker from Beijing provides a good example of what
Henderson refers to as a “non-traditional relationship”:
“One Beijing hacker says two Chinese officials approached him a couple of years ago
requesting ‘help in obtaining classified information’ from foreign governments. He says he
refused the ‘assignment,’ but admits he perused a top US general's personal documents
once while scanning for weaknesses in Pentagon information systems ‘for fun.’ The
hacker, who requested anonymity to avoid detection, acknowledges that Chinese
companies now hire people like him to conduct industrial espionage. ‘It used to be that
hackers wouldn't do that because we all had a sense of social responsibility ... but now
people do anything for money.’”
The approach used with the Beijing hacker reflects the same methodology the government
employs with human intelligence collectors. China has developed a diverse, informal
network of students, teachers, tourists, and foreign workers inside of host nations to
collect tiny bits of information, and from there develop a composite picture of the
environment.