Chinese Threat To U.S. Economic Security

William A. Blunden, San Francisco State University

Stevenson Hall 1300
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM

In an annual report on China published in 2013, the Pentagon stated that the Chinese government 'appeared' to be siphoning off Intellectual property from the United States and that the acquired intelligence could potentially benefit China's hi-tech industry and threaten the U.S. economy. Former White House Advisor Richard Clarke took this narrative a step further by explicitly claiming that Chinese spying is costing American jobs. Mike Rogers, the Republican congressman from Michigan who currently chairs the House Intelligence Committee, pulled out all the stops and went flat-out full bore. During a video segment released on CNBC he brazenly stated that cyber-attacks from China are the number one threat to U.S. economic security. Could Congressman Rogers be correct? Let's pause for a moment and reflect on this notion. Does Chinese cyber espionage actually represent this sort of existential threat?