Evan Medeiros
Appearances
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
The idea of taking this from the United States wasn't thought of as this major infraction. And it was motivated in part by this Chinese belief that we, China, had been subject to shame and humiliation at the hand of foreigners for so many years. Now is our time. So there was almost a sense of self-legitimizing this IP theft, like as if we, China, had been held back We're trying to get ahead.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
So stealing this stuff is really not so bad. And these foreigners have so much to offer anyway.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
Regular espionage, what we consider to be fair game, is listening into the phone calls or reading the emails of officials of other governments to understand what their strategic intentions are, what their policies are, as a way to give the U.S. an advantage in great power competitions. That's what Garden Bride espionage is all about.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
You want to know what the other side is doing and thinking and especially what they don't want you to know. The National Security Agency does not hack into Chinese companies or the Chinese government and turn around and give it to Google or Apple or General Motors. Just doesn't happen.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
So the most important story of China over the last 40 years is the period of reform and opening that started in late 1978. This was announced and pursued by Deng Xiaoping, known as the great reformer of China.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
And through this reform and opening policy, basically what Deng Xiaoping said was, we're going to open China and we're going to develop the economy because under Mao we became so backward, backward economically, technologically. As a result, people's lives suffered and China lost influence internationally.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
And so, for much of the last 40 years, economic development has always been the ultimate top priority. Economic development was essential to not only growing the Chinese economy and giving the Chinese people a better standard of living, improving their lives, but it was central to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
If they were going to claim to continue to be in power, one of the sources of that was improving people's lives.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 3: The Most Dangerous Time in American History
China was going through this process of trying to move up the value chain in production, needed access to R&D and production expertise that it didn't have. So the Chinese government started stealing it for Chinese companies.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 5: A Cyber Detente
And Xi Jinping just sort of stopped, put down in his pen, looked up and said, I got it. Let's move on.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 5: A Cyber Detente
So what we realized was we really were going to have to go to the top. We were going to have to signal to the top. One of the most difficult diplomatic tasks that we had was trying to sensitize China to this distinction between regular intelligence and let's call it economic espionage. I can remember one conversation in particular in June of 2013 at Sunnylands.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 5: A Cyber Detente
Remember, Obama did something he very, very rarely did. He raised it with Xi Jinping, and you got the sort of standard, oblique Chinese talking points back. Obama raised it a second time with Xi Jinping, sort of what we used to call the double tap. and said, no, this is really serious.
To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
Ep 5: A Cyber Detente
And I'm telling you, as the president, our government actors don't conduct economic espionage and we don't give it to American companies. And Xi Jinping acknowledged it. And then Obama did a triple tap. And he said, look, if we don't solve this issue, it's going to become a very serious problem for our governments and our businesses.