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Michael Evans, Giles Whittell | TimesOnLine (United Kingdom)
March 08, 2010

Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.

The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.

Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: "Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we're now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security." The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.

In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.

The Chinese cyber-penetration of key offices in both Nato and the EU has led to restrictions in the normal flow of intelligence because there are concerns that secret intelligence reports might be vulnerable.

Sources at the Office for Cyber Security at the Cabinet Office in London, set up last year, said there were two forms of attack: those focusing on disrupting computer systems and others involving "fishing trips" for sensitive information. A special team has been set up at GCHQ, the government communications headquarters in Gloucestershire, to counter the growing cyber-threat affecting intelligence material. The team becomes operational this month.

British and American cyber defences are among the most sophisticated in the world, but "the EU is less competent", James Lewis, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said. "The porousness of the European institutions makes them a good target for penetration. They are of interest to the Chinese on issues from arms sales and nuclear non-proliferation to Tibet and energy."

The lack of routine intelligencesharing between the US and the EU also contributes to the vulnerability of European systems, another analyst said. "Because of Britain's intelligence-sharing relationship with America our systems have to be up to their standards in a way that some of the European systems don't," he explained.

Jonathan Evans, Director-General of MI5, warned in 2007 that several states were actively involved in large-scale cyber-attacks. Although he did not specify which states were involved, security officials have indicated that China now poses the gravest threat. Beijing has denied making such attacks.

Robert Mueller, FBI Director, has warned that, in addition to the danger of foreign states making cyber-attacks, al-Qaeda could in the future pose a similar threat. In a speech to a security conference last week, Mr Mueller said terrorist groups had used the internet to recruit members and to plan attacks, but added: "Terrorists have \ shown a clear interest in pursuing hacking skills and they will either train their own recruits or hire outsiders with an eye towards combining physical attacks with cyber-attacks."

He said that a cyber-attack could have the same impact as a "well-placed bomb". Mr Mueller also accused "nation-state hackers" of seeking out US technology, intelligence, intellectual property and even military weapons and strategies.To help to fight the growing threat, the Office of Cyber Security, set up last year as part of the Government's national security strategy, liaises with America's so-called cyber czar, Howard Schmidt, who was appointed by President Obama to protect sensitive government computers.

British officials said that everyone in sensitive jobs had been warned to be especially cautious about disseminating intelligence and other classified information. Whether British intelligence is involved in retaliatory attacks is never confirmed. However, officials said that there was a significant difference between being part of an information war and indulging in aggressive attacks to disrupt another country's computer systems.

Dr Lewis said that neither the US nor any of its Western allies had formed an effective response to the Chinese threat, which has its origins in a massive boost to Chinese technology ordered by Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese leader, in 1986. The West's own cyber offensives have so far been directed largely at terrorists rather than nation states, giving China virtually free rein to penetrate Western systems with its own world-class hackers and increasingly popular Chinese-made components. "You almost have to admire them," Dr Lewis said. "They have been very consistent in their goals."

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By Michael Wines | The New York Times
March 02, 2010

Chinese security agents in Sichuan Province detained Liao Yiwu, a prominent author and critic of the government, as he prepared to fly Monday to a literary festival in Germany, human rights activists said.

It was the 13th time Mr. Liao had been prevented from leaving the country. The Associated Press reported that he had been placed under house arrest after being questioned by security agents for four hours.

"How can this happen?" The A.P. quoted him as saying. "It's a cultural event, nothing political. Such drama!"

Telephone calls on Tuesday to Mr. Liao's home in rural Chengdu produced a recording saying that the line was temporarily unavailable. Calls to his cellphone went unanswered.

Mr. Liao was removed from a plane at Chengdu's airport as he prepared to fly to Germany to attend lit.Cologne, one of Europe's largest literary festivals, where he was to read from one of his books, "Miss Hello and the Farm Emperor: Chinese Society From the Bottom."

"The reason for inviting Mr. Liao was simple: he's a great writer," Traudle Berger, a spokeswoman at the Cologne Festival, said in an interview on Tuesday. "And China should be proud of such a great writer."

Ms. Berger said Mr. Liao's scheduled reading would still take place, with an actor assuming his role. Proceeds from the ticketed event will be donated to the human rights group Amnesty International, she said.

Last September, Mr. Liao was barred from traveling to Berlin to attend an event affiliated with the Frankfurt Book Fair, at which China was designated the honored guest.

A poet, screenwriter and new-journalism author, Mr. Liao, 51, is one of China's best known and most outspoken writers. Many of his works tell stories of people who have been left behind in the nation's rush to economic and political prominence, characters that include prostitutes, a grave robber, and a lavatory attendant.

His 2008 book "The Corpse Walker," another view of Chinese society's lower rungs, was published to international acclaim. His works are banned in China, but he has gained a large underground following, and pirated versions of his works can be found in some Chinese bookstores.

Mr. Liao was imprisoned for four years in the early 1990s after writing an epic poem, "Massacre," which denounced the Chinese government's suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In December 2007, when he traveled to Beijing to receive an award from the Independent Chinese PEN Center, a writers' rights organization, he was detained by the police and sent back to Chengdu.

In a text-message exchange last month, Mr. Liao said he had repeatedly met with Chengdu security officials to negotiate for permission to attend the Cologne event, but was told that he had been blacklisted by Beijing officials and forbidden to travel abroad.

In a Monday interview with the German network Deutsche Welle, Mr. Liao said he was seated on the plane at Chengdu's airport on Monday morning when a flight attendant approached and told him that "someone is looking for you."

"I asked who it was, and she said it would be best if I got my luggage," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I got my bags, and while I was walking to the cabin door, I saw a police officer."

Mr. Liao said the police told him, "You cannot continue doing whatever you want."

"I told them there will be many readers at the festival," he said. "I would like to go and meet them and read some of my own pieces and play the traditional Chinese mouth organ, the xiao. I said it was purely a literature festival and nothing political. They said they understood and were only doing their job following orders from the top."

On Monday, the PEN American Center, which like the Chinese organization is one of 145 affiliates of the International PEN Center, called on China's president, Hu Jintao, to lift restrictions on Mr. Liao and other writers.

"It is hard to figure what the Chinese government hopes to accomplish by preventing one of its most compelling literary voices from meeting with international colleagues and readers," Larry Siems, who directs the American center's Freedom to Write program, said in a written statement.

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By David Pierson - Los Angeles Times
February 24, 2010

Applicants will have to verify their identities with regulators and have their photographs taken. A government ministry will review the requests.

In a move that will give the government new powers to police the Internet, China will require individuals seeking to establish personal websites to verify their identities with regulators and have their photographs taken.

The order lifts a ban on registering personal sites that was issued in December as part of a campaign to crack down on Internet pornography.

To apply, an individual must visit his or her local Internet service provider's office, submit an identification card and pose for a photograph. Applications will then be sent to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for review.

The new requirements add another layer of oversight in a country that is already deeply criticized for having some of the world's strictest Internet controls. Regulators have also discussed requiring stricter identity verification to purchase mobile phones and leave comments online.

Google Inc. threatened to quit China last month partly because it was fed up with having to censor its Chinese search engine.

Officials say the new rule is needed to stifle Internet porn.

"Internet security needs to be cured from its roots," Li Yizhong, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, was quoted as saying in a state news article Sunday.

Critics say the new requirement has little to do with pornography and instead serves to increase controls and discourage web users from engaging in any activity that challenged the government.

For all its complexity, experts say the key to the government's controls is not its filtering technology or registration requirements, but the willingness of individuals to censor themselves.

"This new measure comes as no surprise, since a key element of control has always been about how to use disciplinary punishment and surveillance to create a self-censorship environment," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley. "The government feels increasingly insecure with their ability to control the Internet, therefore more and more policies and controlling practices are aimed at enhancing a self-policing environment."

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By Edward Wong | The New York Times
February 20, 2010

When President Obama met with the Dalai Lama in the White House on Thursday, he was following a tradition that all recent American presidents had dutifully honored.

Yet, to some Chinese Mr. Obama's support of the Dalai Lama represents something more troubling and disrespectful. The meeting, while low-profile, and the routine announcement last month of American arms sales to Taiwan, were taken as the latest signs that despite China's rapid ascent, the American government still refused to compromise on issues that China considered sacrosanct: matters of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called in Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the American ambassador here, to lecture him on the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetans, whom China considers a separatist.

"At this time, China and the U.S. cannot find any agreement on strategic issues," said Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University.

Few American officials would disagree. The rift in United States-China relations has arisen in part because the two countries have completely different items at the top of their foreign policy agendas and are talking past each other, American officials say.

They say that China emphasizes sovereignty issues while refusing to give any weight to the Obama administration's two top priorities in the relationship: containing Iran's nuclear ambitions and rebalancing currencies and trade. The Americans have also highlighted issues of Internet censorship and security.

"There's not a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram," an American official involved in China policy said on the condition of anonymity, following diplomatic protocol. "What's really the most worrisome is the degree to which we have that disconnect."

Those tensions are likely to worsen in coming months as domestic pressures in each country push the governments to assert their agendas more boldly, and as China's confidence in its economic system continues to grow.

On the American side, a struggling economy is forcing the Obama administration to make currency valuation and market liberalization top priorities. With an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent and midterm elections coming up, American officials are aware that pushing China to raise the value of its currency, the renminbi, and allowing American companies greater access to some Chinese markets could be important political victories for Mr. Obama and his party.

"We've got to look at the risk of a more populist American public and the U.S. Congress deciding that China is the reason our economy isn't growing enough," the American official said.

Economists say the renminbi is undervalued by 25 to 40 percent, a wider gap than at any other time since 2005, when, under pressure from the Bush administration, China decided to allow the renminbi to float in a narrow band against the dollar and other currencies. The renminbi appreciated 21 percent, but has not moved at all since July 2008. This month, Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, rejected an unusually public call by Mr. Obama for China to revalue its currency, saying that "the value of the renminbi is getting to a reasonable and balanced level."

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By Andrew Jacobs | The New York Times
February 03, 2010

A year ago this week, Chinese security agents made a midnight visit to the home of Gao Zhisheng, one of China's most high-profile human rights lawyers, and led him away. They told his family he was wanted for a brief chat.

In the months that followed, his whereabouts have become a mystery and a growing source of concern for relatives, colleagues and human rights advocates, who fear that he has been badly tortured or worse.

His case is highly unusual, even by the standards of China's opaque justice system. After a previous detention in 2006, Mr. Gao was allowed to return home after publicly confessing to a number of transgressions. Once out of custody, however, Mr. Gao recanted his confession and described abuse he said he had suffered. He also said his torturers told him he would be killed if he spoke publicly about the matter.

Diplomatic entreaties to the Chinese government have been brushed aside. Foreign reporters who ask about his plight have been treated to glib retorts. Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, compounded the mystery two weeks ago by saying that Mr. Gao "is where he should be." When prodded again at a regular press briefing last Tuesday, he offered a smile and said: "Honestly speaking, I don't know where he is. China has 1.3 billion people and I can't know all of their whereabouts."

Legal experts say the disappearance of Mr. Gao, whose case has been championed by American lawmakers, several European leaders and the United Nations, represents a disturbing milestone. Even in the most politicized cases, the Chinese authorities generally claim to be complying with their own criminal procedure laws. Mr. Gao has vanished with no official accounting or legal explanation.

Emboldened by China's newfound economic prowess but insecure about its standing at home, the Chinese Communist Party has been tightening Internet censorship, cracking down on legal rights defenders and brushing aside foreign leaders who seek to influence the outcome of individual cases.

In December, the authorities executed Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen, on drug trafficking charges despite Prime Minister Gordon Brown's personal plea to President Hu Jintao that Mr. Shaikh was mentally ill.

During President Obama's state visit to China in November, the plight of a pro-democracy advocate, Liu Xiaobo, was reportedly at the top of his list of concerns. A few weeks later, on Dec. 25, Mr. Liu was given an unexpectedly harsh 11-year sentence for publishing an online petition that sought expanded liberties.

John Kamm, a veteran American human rights campaigner, said that during three decades working in China he had rarely seen such a hard line toward dissidents -- and unbridled defiance against pressure from abroad. "China right now doesn't feel like it owes anyone anything on human rights," said Mr. Kamm, the founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, which seeks clemency for political prisoners through quiet diplomacy. "I've never seen a downward spiral like this."

In the 31 years since the People's Republic of China and the United States established diplomatic relations, Chinese officials have often resisted American intervention on human rights, calling the issue a domestic matter. But there has generally been some give and take, largely behind the scenes, especially in the years after the violent suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square, when China was eager to shed its pariah status abroad.

That leverage began dissipating in 2001 after China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, and Congress surrendered the right to review China's human rights record before granting it favorable trade status.

There is little space in Chinese society for unyielding dissidents like Mr. Gao. But until recently, the authorities often allowed them to stay at home under close surveillance. If they crossed certain unwritten lines, they might be prosecuted, often for the crime of inciting subversion or leaking state secrets. Even if stymied in their defense, lawyers can expect a modicum of information about their clients. Family jailhouse visits are not uncommon.

But Mr. Gao's case has defied these norms.

In September, a security agent who took Mr. Gao into custody told one of his brothers that he had simply disappeared during a walk. The brother, Gao Zhiyi, said he suspected the worst. "If he were alive, they would have allowed me to visit him," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Shaanxi Province. "Either that or he's in such bad shape, it would be too horrible for anyone to see him."

Rights advocates say Mr. Gao's predicament can be partly traced to his persistent and caustic criticism of the ruling Communist Party. A self-educated lawyer, Mr. Gao, 46, was named one of China's top 10 lawyers by the Ministry of Justice in 2001 for his work defending victims of medical malpractice and farmers whose land had been seized for redevelopment.

But Mr. Gao quickly ran afoul of the authorities when he began representing members of unofficial Christian churches and adherents of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. In 2005, the Beijing judicial bureau closed his firm and suspended the licenses of its 20 lawyers. Mr. Gao countered by publicly renouncing his Communist Party membership and writing a series of open letters to senior leaders that demanded an end to the persecution of Falun Gong believers.

A week later, Mr. Gao was arrested. In a letter published just before his latest disappearance, he documented what he said happened to him during his 54 days in custody. He was shocked and beaten almost continuously, he wrote, or forced to sit motionless, enveloped by blinding lights. By the end, he said, "the skin all over my body had turned black." He was released only after he confessed to various crimes; he retracted his confession as soon as he was let go.

A month before he vanished last February, Mr. Gao's wife and children slipped away from their minders and, with the help of Christian activists, left China. Ten days later, they were granted asylum in the United States.

Renee Xia, the international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said the family's escape, coupled with the revelations of Mr. Gao's torture, probably infuriated those charged with reining in his activities.

Given the increasingly strained relations between China and the United States, it is unclear whether Mr. Gao's supporters abroad can have any impact on his fate. But some, like Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that Chinese leaders were still sensitive to international criticism and that a spike in global protests over Mr. Gao's mistreatment would not go unnoticed.

"Beijing doesn't care about releasing a prisoner or two," he said. "It's not going to bring about the collapse of the Communist Party but if they don't have to do it, they won't."

Zhang Jing and Jonathan Ansfield contributed research.

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