Espionage involving China

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texx1

Junior Member
It didn't take long to escalate. Chinese government just told state-owned enterprises to stop dealing with US consulting companies such as Boston Consulting group, McKinsey, Bain & Company due to spying concerns. Bad news for US elites and revolving door ex-politicians as the most profitable sector in Chinese economy is now closed to them.

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May 25 (Reuters) - China has told its state-owned enterprises to sever links with American consulting firms just days after the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking U.S. companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

China's action, which targets companies like McKinsey & Company and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), stems from fears the firms are providing trade secrets to the U.S. government, the FT reported, citing unnamed sources close to senior Chinese leaders.

"We haven't received any notification of this kind," said Margaret Kashmir, a spokeswoman for Strategy& - formerly Booz & Company - in an email, adding that serving clients in China and globally continues to be the company's main priority.

"We are unaware of any government mandates," added Bain & Company spokeswoman Cheryl Krauss.

A McKinsey spokeswoman did not return a call seeking comment. A spokeswoman for BCG was not immediately able to comment.

The companies have large operations in China, the FT reported. McKinsey, BCG and Strategy& all have Chinese state enterprises as clients, the newspaper said.

China warned this week it would retaliate if Washington pressed ahead with allegations that the Chinese officers hacked into U.S. nuclear, metal and solar companies, including Alcoa Inc, Allegheny Technologies Inc, United States Steel Corp, Toshiba Corp unit Westinghouse Electric Co, the U.S. subsidiaries of SolarWorld AG and a steelworkers' union.

Officials in Washington have argued for years that cyber espionage is a top national security concern.

The May 19 indictment was the first criminal hacking charge the United States has filed against specific foreign officials. It follows a steady increase in public criticism and private confrontation, including at a summit last year between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the wake of the charges, Chinese media labeled the U.S. government a "high-level hooligan," while officials in Beijing accused Washington of "double standards" on issues of cyber spying.

China also said it would investigate providers of IT products and services to guard "national security," and "economic and social development." It also banned new central government computers from using Windows 8, Microsoft Corp's latest operating system. (Reporting by Hilary Russ in New York; editing by Paul Simao and G Crosse)
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TyroneG

Banned Idiot
I have doubts about hacking for top level trade secret.

China 's number 1 priority is getting its Jet engine to work. Heck, if hacking get top level info, those engine making secrets would already been hacked and China wouldn't be struggling so hard on this for so many years.

I think it's all political. I don't believe top level trade secrets can be hacked because they are stored inside the internal network where external network cannot access.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
TyroneG said:
I have doubts about hacking for top level trade secret.

China 's number 1 priority is getting its Jet engine to work. Heck, if hacking get top level info, those engine making secrets would already been hacked and China wouldn't be struggling so hard on this for so many years.

I think it's all political. I don't believe top level trade secrets can be hacked because they are stored inside the internal network where external network cannot access.
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Ummm... Just because you really, really want something doesn't mean you won't take some other goodies if you can.
 
A

A.Man

Major
China pushing banks to remove IBM servers in spy dispute: Bloomberg

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(Reuters) - The Chinese government is pushing domestic banks to remove high-end servers made by International Business Machines Corp and replace them with a local brand, the latest move by Beijing over U.S. spying claims, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

The news comes a day after China accused the United States of "unscrupulous" cyber surveillance that included large-scale computer attacks against the Chinese government and Chinese companies. Government agencies, including the People's Bank of China [CNBNK.UL] and the Ministry of Finance, are reviewing whether Chinese commercial banks' reliance on the IBM servers compromises the country's financial security, the report said citing people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman at the National Development and Reform Commission said the country's top economic planner has not told companies to change their IBM servers, nor received orders from higher levels of the government to do so.

Officials at IBM were not immediately available for comment. The central bank and the finance ministry did not immediately respond to request for comment when contacted by Reuters.

The results of the government review will be submitted to a working group on Internet security chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Bloomberg reported.

Sources at China's "big four" state-owned banks said they had no knowledge of the reported pressure for a technology change, saying any replacement of banks' systems is not an easy task.

"We haven't heard about the order," an official at one of the bank's IT department said, declining to be identified because he is not allowed to speak to the media.

"There aren't any locally made hardware around that can handle the massive amount of data in the banking industry."

China told its state-owned enterprises to sever links with American consulting firms just days after the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking U.S. companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

(Reporting by Xie Heng, Kang Xize, Koh Gui Qing and Aileen Wang in Beijing, Bi Xiaowen in Hong Kong and Arnab Sen in Bangalore; Writing by Kazunori Takada; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Kenneth Maxwell)
 
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delft

Brigadier
Just as the US wants local manufacture for the aircraft used by its armed forces ( AV-8, C-27, T-45 ) so China might decide to use only locally made computers in its banking and build the industry to produce them. Its of course also industrial policy but WTO can do little about it. By advertising it is not abusing the possibility of spying on its clients they might well drive IBM out of the banking of many other countries. The way to do so is to use open source computer programming so that the clients can read and check: trust but verify.
 
TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
I have said before that is the Aim. The CCP As I view it is operating on a model. If they need something, Find it at home, If they cant find it Import it, Until they have established a domestic base then push the importer out of the domestic Market.
I doubt IBM will loose many contracts to it's wester established Costumers. but China may gain traction in the developing and Russian World and that is there export Aim. Africa and Eastern Europe.
 
T

texx1

Junior Member
A.Man said:
China pushing banks to remove IBM servers in spy dispute: Bloomberg

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(Reuters) - The Chinese government is pushing domestic banks to remove high-end servers made by International Business Machines Corp and replace them with a local brand, the latest move by Beijing over U.S. spying claims, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

The news comes a day after China accused the United States of "unscrupulous" cyber surveillance that included large-scale computer attacks against the Chinese government and Chinese companies. Government agencies, including the People's Bank of China [CNBNK.UL] and the Ministry of Finance, are reviewing whether Chinese commercial banks' reliance on the IBM servers compromises the country's financial security, the report said citing people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman at the National Development and Reform Commission said the country's top economic planner has not told companies to change their IBM servers, nor received orders from higher levels of the government to do so.

Officials at IBM were not immediately available for comment. The central bank and the finance ministry did not immediately respond to request for comment when contacted by Reuters.

The results of the government review will be submitted to a working group on Internet security chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Bloomberg reported.

Sources at China's "big four" state-owned banks said they had no knowledge of the reported pressure for a technology change, saying any replacement of banks' systems is not an easy task.

"We haven't heard about the order," an official at one of the bank's IT department said, declining to be identified because he is not allowed to speak to the media.

"There aren't any locally made hardware around that can handle the massive amount of data in the banking industry."

China told its state-owned enterprises to sever links with American consulting firms just days after the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking U.S. companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

(Reporting by Xie Heng, Kang Xize, Koh Gui Qing and Aileen Wang in Beijing, Bi Xiaowen in Hong Kong and Arnab Sen in Bangalore; Writing by Kazunori Takada; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Kenneth Maxwell)
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Not just high-end servers. It's a little ironic that IBM won't be getting any low-end server business as well since it sold the low-end server business to Lenovo for 2.3 billion dollars in January.

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(Reuters) - Chinese PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd has agreed to buy International Business Machine Corp's low-end server business for $2.3 billion in what would be China's biggest technology deal.

The long-expected acquisition comes nearly a decade after Lenovo bought IBM's money-losing ThinkPad business for $1.75 billion, eventually becoming the world leader in personal computers in 2012...
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A

A.Man

Major
China is making a move for Obama saving face

China tries to limit damage from cyber spying spat

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BEIJING (AP) — China tried Wednesday to cool a dispute with Washington over cyber spying, reminding the United States of its need for Chinese help over North Korea and appealing to it not to hurt cooperation in anti-terrorism and other areas.

The effort at damage control, despite the outraged tone of Beijing's rejection of spying allegations last week, reflects the importance of commercial and political ties between the two biggest economies. It comes at a time when Beijing is embroiled in a territorial dispute with Vietnam and is trying to persuade other governments to avoid getting involved.

"The row between China and the United States over cyber security should not become a rift to undermine the two sides' cooperation on other issues of common concern," the government's Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary.

Washington announced criminal charges last week against five Chinese military officers accused of breaking into computers of major U.S. companies to steal commercial secrets.

The Chinese government denied the accusation. Wednesday's commentary called on Washington to "refrain from taking further wrongful steps."

The appeal came just a day after a Cabinet agency issued a sharply worded report that said pervasive U.S. cyber spying against Chinese targets "flagrantly breached" international law. It called on Washington to stop.

Xinhua noted that Washington needs Beijing's support in trying to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula and to combat climate change, while China is an important market for U.S. companies.

"The United States is more than an important trading partner, but also a staunch fighter against terrorism," Xinhua said. "The U.S. role in eliminating terrorism globally has become especially important for China now, when it has been exposed to dangerous terrorist attacks in the past few months."
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Can anyone link that editorial from Xinhua? I tried searching for it and couldn't find anything of the sort. I'd like to know the context. On one hand it sounds like a threat that China will next not help with North Korea or it could be interpreted as China blinking.
 
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