Cyber Hype Versus Cyber Reality - How Severe Is The Threat That Chinese Cyber-Attacks Pose To United States' National Security?

Abstract

Cyber threats regarding China's political espionage and intellectual property theft have featured prominently in United States (U.S.) government's public discourse in recent years. This thesis examines the threats that China's cyber-attacks pose to U.S. national security and critically assesses whether the government discourse surrounding China's cyber-attacks accurately reflects the actual threats. Overall, the study shows that China's cyber-attacks do not pose an existential threat to U.S. national security, contrasting U.S. government officials' claims which tend to exaggerate and depict Chinese cyber-attacks as an existential threat. Based on cyber- attack data between the U.S. and China from January 2013 to May 2019, this paper observes that China primarily conducts long-term espionage, exerting economic, diplomatic and social impacts, but does not conduct any degradative cyber-attacks. The study also observes from government statements surrounding two cyber-attacks - Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack and Operation Cloudhopper - that U.S. government officials exaggerated China's cyber-attacks in imposing counterintelligence impacts of mortal danger, and inflated China as an unprecedented threat that unfairly benefits Chinese firms at the expense of U.S. firms. This paper concludes that...