Old wine in new bottles: China-Taiwan computer-based 'information warfare' and propaganda

International Affairs

Volumn 81, Issue 5, 2005, Pages

  Rawnsley, Gary D ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 27444444059     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00502.x     Document Type: Review

References (103)

1. The 'world's first ICT ranking', produced by the International Telecommunications Union in 2003, described Taiwan as 'high access', with a digital access index (DAI, on a scale of 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest access) of 0.79; China was described as having 'medium access', with a DAI of 0.43. See www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2003/, 19 Nov. 2003.
2. See David Finkelstein, 'China's national military strategy', in James C. Mulvenon and Richard Yang, eds, The People's Liberation Army in the information age (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999);
3. also Office of the US Secretary of Defense, 'The security situation in the Taiwan Strait', 26 Feb. 1999, at www.defenselink.mil/pubs/twStrait_02261999. html;
4. Major General Wang Pufeng, 'The challenge of information warfare', Spring 1995, http://www.fas.org/irp/world/china/docs/iw_mg_wang.htm;
5. and James Mulvenon, 'The PLA and information warfare', in Mulvenon and Yang, eds, The People's Liberation Army, pp. 175-86.
6. For Taiwan, see Democratic Progressive Party Policy Committee, 'White Paper on national defense', 23 Nov. 1999, and the Ministry of National Defense's 2000 Defense White Paper.
7. Quoted in David Lague, 'Chen launches his missile vote', Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 Jan. 2004, pp. 24-7 at p. 26.
8. The Anti-Secession Law 'provides that in the event that the "Taiwan independence" forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity'. Wang Zhaoguo, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, 8 March 2005, at http:English.peopledaily.com.cn/200503/ 08.
9. On the vulnerability of such networks, see L. Scott Johnson, 'Toward a functional model of information warfare', Studies in Intelligence 1: 1, 1997.
10. Lawrence Freedman has noted that 'In strategic thinking, dependence soon becomes a vulnerability and, by extension, a potential target.' See his The revolution in strategic affairs, Adelphi Paper 318 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 52.
11. R. J. Perrins, China Facts and Figures Annual Handbook, 2001 (Gulf Breeze, PL: Academic International Press, 2001), p. 311.
12. Nina Hachigian, 'China's cyber-strategy', Foreign Affairs 80: 2, March-April 2001, pp. 118-33.
13. The number of Chinese websites increased by 60% in 2003 to 595, 550: China Internet Network Information Centre, quoted in South China Morning Post, 16 Jan. 2004, p. A7.
14. 'Menace of tech warfare looms: Defence Ministry', Taipei Times, 24 July 2002;
15. 'Military to test computer bugs', AFP, 8 Aug. 2000;
16. 'Defense minister calls for budget increase', China Times, 2 Nov. 1999.
17. In the United States, critical infrastructures were defined in Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63) of May 1998 as comprising 'information and communications; banking and finance; water supply; aviation, highways, mass transit pipeline, rail and water-borne commerce; emergency, fire, and continuity of government services; public health services; electric power, oil and gas production and storage". See Steven A. Hildreth, 'Cyberwarfare', in John V. Blane, ed., Cyberwarfare: terror at a dick (Huntingdon, NY: Novinka, 2001), p. 9.
18. Alan Dupont, East Asia imperilled: transnational challenges to security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 8.
19. James J. Hentz, 'Introduction: new regionalism and the "theory of security studies'", in James J. Hentz and Morten Bøås, eds, New and critical security and regionalism: beyond the nation state (London: Ashgate, 2003), p. 4.
20. Paul Dibb, 'The revolution in military affairs and Asian security', Survival 39: 4, 1997-8).
21. Johnson, 'Toward a functional model of information warfare'.
22. David Held and Anthony McGrew, 'Globalization and the liberal democratic state', in Yoshikazu Sakamoto, ed., Global transformation: challenges to the state system (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1994).
23. Ole Waever, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup and Pierre Lemaitre, Identity, migration and the new security agenda in Europe (New York: St Martin's Press, 1993), p. 23.
24. Richard A. Bitzinger and Bates Gill outline four conventional scenarios in any conflict with Taiwan, from 'low-level intimidation' to invasion: Gearing up for high-tech warfare? Chinese and Taiwanese defense modernization and implications for military conflict across the Taiwan Strait, 1995-4003 (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Feb. 1996).
25. On the tactical application of information warfare, see Freedman, The revolution in strategic affairs, p. 50.
26. Jessica T. Matthews, 'Power shift', Foreign Affairs 76: 1, 1997;
27. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr, Power and interdependence (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1989);
28. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr, 'Globalization: what's new? What's not? (And so what?)'. Foreign Policy, no. 118, Spring 2000.
29. See Amitav Acharya, A new regional order in South-East Asia: ASEAN in the post-Cold War era, Adelphi Paper 279 (London: IISS, Aug. 1993).
30. Alexander Wendt, Social theory of international politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
31. Alastair Ian Johnston, 'Thinking about strategic culture', International Security 19: 4, 1995;
32. Muthiah Alagappa, Asian security practice: material and ideational influences (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 649.
33. G. Prunier, The Rwanda crisis, 1959-1994: history of genocide (London: Hurst, 1995), p. 4.0.
34. Neil Renwick and Qing Cao, 'Modern political communication in China', in Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, eds. Political communications in greater China: the construction and reflection of identity (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 63.
35. Asian People's Anti-Communist League, A decade of Chinese communist tyranny (Taipei: 1960).
36. China Yearbook, 1957-1958 (Taipei: Government Information Office, 1958), p. i.
37. See letter from Secretary of State Dulles to Foreign Secretary Lloyd, 24 Oct. 1958, in Foreign relations of the United States, 1958-1960, vol. 19: China (Washington DC: Department of State, 1996), p. 451.
38. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in conversation, 12 Sept. 1958, quoted in Foreign relations of the United States, 1958-1960, vol. 19: China, pp. 168-71.
39. For further details of Kinmen and Matsu as the outposts of the propaganda war, see G. D. Rawnsley, 'Taiwan's propaganda cold war', Intelligence and National Security 14: 4, 2000,
40. reprinted in R. J. Aldrich, G. D. Rawnsley and M. Y. T. Rawnsley, eds, The clandestine Cold War in Asia (London: Frank Cass, 2000).
41. See Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the mind (Manchester Manchester University Press, 1996);
42. Gary Rawnsley, Radio diplomacy and propaganda: the BBC and VoA in international politics, 1956-64 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996).
43. Freedman, The revolution in strategic affairs, p. 56. 'White' propaganda is open about intention and source. 'Black' propaganda aims to deceive, usually concealing or lying about the source.
44. Richard Szafranski, 'Neocortical warfare? The acme of skill', Military Review 74: 11, Nov. 1994, pp. 41-55.
45. Freedman, The revolution in strategic affairs, p. 56.
46. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds, In Athena's camp: preparing for conflict in the information age (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1997);
47. Richard J. Harknett, 'Information warfare and deterrence', Parameters: US Army War College Quarterly, Autumn 1996, pp. 93-107.
48. Roger C. Molander, Andrew S. Riddle and Peter A. Wilson, Strategic information warfare: a newface of war (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1996).
49. Ajay Singh, 'Information warfare: reshaping traditional perceptions', at www.idsa-india.org/an-mar-4.html.
50. Andrew N. D. Yang and Col. Milton Wen-Chung Liao (ret.), 'PLA rapid reaction forces: concept, training, and preliminary assessment', in Mulvenon and Yang, eds, The People's Liberation Army, p. 49. There is evidence in the available Chinese literature that the authors have borrowed heavily from the US discourse on information warfare. See
51. James Mulvenon, 'The PLA and the information age', in Mulvenon and Yang, eds, The People's Liberation Army, p. 178.
52. 'Army paper on information warfare', Jiefangjun bao, 25 June 1996, p. 6;
53. Liu Huaqing, 'Unswervingly march along the road of building a modern army with Chinese characteristics', Jiefangjun bao, 6 Aug. 1993,
54. both in Foreign Broadcast Information Service-China (FBIS), 20 Nov. 1996.
55. Information warfare and military revolution (Xinxi zhanzheng yu junshi geming) (Beijing: Military Sciences Publishing House, Dec. 1995), p. 144.
56. 'Major General Wang Pufeng is nominally the author of . . . [what] appears to be the first full-length book on IW published in China . . . Attaching his name to the book at least indicates that the subject is taken very seriously by the PLA High Command': Harlan W. Jencks, 'Wild speculations on the military balance in the Taiwan Strait', in James R. Lilley and Chuck Downs, eds, Crisis in the Taiwan Strait (Washington DC: National Defense University, 1997), p. 161, n.12. It is clear, however, that the coalition forces won victory over Iraq by using a carefully designed combination of information warfare and conventional methods of military attack.
57. See Edward Waltz, Information warfare: principles and operations (Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1998), pp. 7-8.
58. For more on Chinese approaches to information warfare see Chen Huan, 'The third military revolution', in Michael Pillsbury, ed., Chinese views of future warfare (Washington DC: National Defense University, 1997),
59. and You Ji, 'The revolution in military affairs and the evolution of China's strategic thinking', Contemporary Southeast Asia, no. 21, Dec. 1999.
60. This strategy involved more active, but low-level intimidation of Taiwan. See Bates Gill, 'Chinese military hardware and technology acquisitions of concern to Taiwan', in Lilley and Downs, eds, Crisis in the Taiwan Strait, pp. 105-28;
61. Major-General Wang Pufeng, 'The challenge of information warfare', Spring 1995, at http://www.fas.org/irp/world/china/docs/iw_mg_wang.htm.
62. Office of the US Secretary of Defense, 'The security situation in the Taiwan Strait'.
63. Tim Thomas, 'China's technology stratagems', Jane's Intelligence Review, Dec. 2000.
64. Wang Houqing and Zhang Xingye, eds, Beijing science of campaigns (Beijing: National Defense University Publishing House, 2000).
65. Thomas, 'China's technology stratagems';
66. Ehsan Ahrari, 'China changes its strategic mindset-part two', Jane's Intelligence Review, Dec. 1999;
67. Wang Pufeng, 'The challenge of information warfare'.
68. Timothy Thomas, 'The internet in China: civilian and military uses', Information and Security 7, 2001, pp. 159-73.
69. Information from the China Internet Network Information Centre, quoted by South China Morning Post, 16 Jan. 2004, p. A7.
70. Thomas, 'The internet in China'.
71. The concept of 'people's war' via the internet is most fully explored in Shen Weiguang, The Third World War: total information war (Beijing: Xinhua Publishing, 2000).
72. See Michael Chase and James Mulvenon, You've got dissent! Chinese dissident use of the internet and Beijing's counter-strategies (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2002);
73. also 'Guerrilla warfare, waged with code on the internet', New York Times, 13 Oct. 2002.
74. Michael Sheridan, 'China's net warriors take on West', Sunday Times, 1 Sept. 2002, p. 24.
75. 'NSB websites attacked', Taipei Times, 7 March 2000 (emphasis added).
76. Viruses can be considered 'Trojan horses', hidden within a host programme and triggered upon execution; worms 'obliterate or alter data as they bore through system memory'; and 'logic bombs' 'embed themselves in an executable file until activated by a specific event, such as a date': Freedman, The revolution in strategic affairs, p. 55.
77. Mulvenon, 'The PLA and information warfare', pp. 183-5.
78. Office of the US Secretary of Defense, 'The security situation in the Taiwan Strait'.
79. Argument advanced by Bates Gill and Michael O'Hanlon, 'China's hollow military', National Interest 56, Summer 1999;
80. Michael O'Hanlon, 'Why China cannot conquer Taiwan', International Security 25: 2, 2000. 'Does the possible enemy have the capability to wage 3 large-scale cyber attack against the US? It is far from clear even in the intelligence community if strategic rivals like China or Russia already have the technology and, even more important, the knowledge and qualified personnel to hack into computers that control critical infrastructures. Traditional means of intelligence do not help very much in this field, because the capabilities for an attack largely consist of software, commercial off-the-shelf hardware components, and an Internet connection.'
81. See Ralph Bendrath, 'The cyberwar debate: perception and politics in US critical infrastructure protection', Information and Security 7, 2001, pp. 80-103.
82. National Academy of Sciences, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Computers at risk: safe computing in the information age (Washington DC: NAS, 1990).
83. See also Protecting the homeland: report of the Defense Science Board Tusk Force on Defensive Information Operations (Washington DC: Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, March 2001).
84. Lawrence Freedman, 'Operation overload in the shadow of the Somme', Times Higher Education Supplement, 8 Nov. 1996 (section on Multimedia, pp. iv-v).
85. Freedman, 'Operation overload'.
86. Israelis and Palestinians attacked each other's websites following the breakdown of negotiations in October 2000; Pakistani hackers defaced 600 Indian websites following an escalation in the conflict over Kashmir, March 2000. I am grateful to Athina Karatzogianni, PhD candidate in the School of Politics, University of Nottingham, for drawing these incidents to my attention.
87. United Daily News (Taipei), 3 Nov. 1999.
88. Quoted in 'Taiwan has 1000 computer viruses to fight cyber war with China', AFP, 9 Jan. 2000.
89. 'Hacked China.com', Taipei Times, 29 Aug. 1999.
90. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, 'Cyberwar is coming!'. Comparative Strategy 12, Spring 1993, pp. 144, 146-7.
91. 'Gallup hacked, Taiwan cyber-attacked', Yahoo! Asia-News, at http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headline, 7 March 2000.
92. 'Taiwan cites internet rumours', Associated Press, 7 Aug. 1999.
93. 'Taiwan: pressure cooker', Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 Aug. 1995, p. 16.
94. 'Pingtong fexian Zhonggong qianting' ('Chinese communist submarines discovered outside Pingtong'), Shijie Ribao (World Daily), 11 May 1990, p. 32;
95. 'Tai gushi you die' ('Taiwan's stockmarket crashes again'), Shijie Riabo, 17 May 1990, p. 1. A similar story surfaced in 1999. Taiwan's Central News Agency reported that China planned to reactivate its submarine fleets. Although the story was denied by China, this did not prevent Taiwan's stock market experiencing a large drop in value.
96. See United Daily News (Taipei), 27 Nov. 1999, p. 2.
97. Kate Farris, 'Chinese views of information warfare', Defense Intelligence Journal 10: 1, 2001, p. 38.
98. Richard Bitzinger, 'Going places or running in place? China's efforts to leverage advanced technologies in military use', in Susan M. Puska, ed., People's Liberation Army after next (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2000), p. 14.
99. O'Hanlon, 'Why China cannot conquer Taiwan".
100. 'The backbone of the PLA's missile forces opposite Taiwan are the Dongfeng-II and Dongfeng-15 SRBMs. They are expected to be augmented in coming years with conventionally armed Dongfeng 21/25 medium-range ballistic missiles. China is also expected to develop cruise missiles for land attack to boost its ability to strike Taiwan': Lague, 'Chen launches his missile vote', p. 26.
101. Chong-Pin Lin, 'Red fist: China's army in transition', International Defense Review 28, Feb. 1995, p. 34.
102. 'Taiwan's first information warfare group enters service', Taipei Times, 3 Jan. 2001.
103. Bendrath, 'The cyberwar debate', pp. 80-103.