Fischerkeller examines the implications of recent U.S. Cyber Strategy changes, namely the implementation of the defend forward strategy, on American competition with China. He argues that the U.S. government missed a first opportunity to respond adequately to Chinese intellectual property (IP) theft, pursuing unsuccessful diplomatic solutions that have resulted in nearly a decade of American IP loss from Chinese cyber-attacks. He claims that the IP theft was likely part of a planned CCP effort to accelerate Chinese science and engineering-based innovation necessary to sustain economic growth, citing evidence of numerous cases where stolen U.S. IP was “re-innovated” into high-tech domestic Chinese products such as aircraft engines, solar cells, steel, and nuclear reactors.
Despite having fought and lost this battle against IP theft for so long, Fischerkeller claims that a second opportunity for the U.S. has arrived now that pressure from 2018 tariffs and the Covid-19 pandemic have slowed Chinese growth and put it into a “vulnerable state.” Now that the U.S. military has adopted the persistent engagement doctrine in cyberspace, they are better equipped to challenge and deny Chinese theft by assisting vulnerable U.S. companies with defensive measures as well as actively disrupting cyber-enabled IP theft at its source.
