top of page
Search

Chinese Military Espionage

From cyber threat to military imitation: how China is trying to close the gap




Introduction

In recent decades, China has been more deeply involved in cyber espionage than any other nation. Since 2000, it has relied on cyberattacks and traditional spying to acquire advanced foreign weaponry, with 69% of reported incidents occurring under Xi Jinping’s leadership. The primary target has been the United States. Chinese espionage has serious implications for US national security; the theft of weapons technology, including nuclear weapons test data and know-how, might help Beijing improve its military capabilities and reveal the pitfalls of the American defense system. 29% of these incidents sought to acquire military technology and 49% involved the Chinese military or government employees.  

In 2007, 2009 and 2011, Chinese hackers infiltrated the Pentagon servers. They gained access to some terabytes of data containing classified information, such as the blueprints of US stealth fighters. Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Rockwell, Rolls-Royce and Wright-Patterson Air Base are only some of the several entities that have been victims of Chinese industrial espionage. According to the FBI, Chinese hackers outnumber the cyber personnel of the US agency at least 50 to 1. Indeed, hacking is the preferred technique of China’s ruling Communist Party for cyber espionage. Still, it is not the only form of spying adopted; alongside cyber-attacks, China uses conventional means, such as the recruitment of former engineers and scientists who worked in the US, as well as unconventional means, like the buying of property next to a military research facility. A notable example is the decision of the White House in 2022 to force a Chinese-led company to sell property it had bought near a US Air Force base in Wyoming, hosting part of the US nuclear arsenal. The move was motivated by the concern that the foreign company, specialized in cryptocurrency mining, could have leveraged its position for espionage activities. 

The US is not the only target of Chinese cyber espionage. In its annual report published in April, the Dutch Military Intelligence Agency and Security Service (MIVD) stated that Chinese spies have tried to steal information related to Dutch semiconductors, maritime and aerospace industries to strengthen the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army. According to the MIVD, China wants to “build a military that can match any other [...]. To do so, it needs advanced technology it doesn’t yet fully possess”. The MIVD highlighted that China persistently targets Western militaries to acquire knowledge about modern weapons systems and operational expertise, while also pursuing advancements in other high-tech industries.

China’s extensive use of cyber espionage has accelerated its military advancements, but can Beijing truly achieve technological and military parity with the world’s leading powers through such disruptive means? This analysis will explore this question, analyzing the effectiveness of China’s cyber espionage strategy, the challenges it faces in translating stolen data into operational superiority and the broader implications for global security.

Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies. The sharp decrease in 2015 is the result of the agreement between President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping to reduce commercial espionage between the two countries.
Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies. The sharp decrease in 2015 is the result of the agreement between President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping to reduce commercial espionage between the two countries.

New Defense Strategy
 
As the Chinese defense policy document clearly states, “To respond to the security threats facing the country, China’s armed forces take solid steps to strengthen military preparedness and comprehensively enhance combat capabilities for the new era.” Beijing’s strategy for enhancing the technological capabilities of its defense industry is based on three main pillars. 

The first is selective modernization. The Chinese government has realized that obtaining cutting-edge technology in every weapon system category is too costly. This is why the new strategy aims to focus only on certain areas of military capabilities, such as electronic technologies and intelligence. The second pillar is the integration of civilian and military apparatus. Chinese manufacturers will develop dual-use equipment and know-how that can be used to produce weapon systems. The last element is, as we expected, obtaining advanced foreign weapons, materials and know-how.

Beijing believes that importing or acquiring foreign technology and know-how through espionage is essential in enabling the country to reach independence in defense production. Through Beijing’s eyes, the advanced technology needed to become a superpower is far too expensive and time-consuming to develop. So, the strategy of the Chinese government in several cases is to expedite the development of these advanced tools through espionage or by collaborating with allies in inventing new weapons. As two Chinese military officers involved in defense production stated, China should “obtain jade from the rocks of other mountains”. This explains why Russian experts are currently training workers at the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation on how to assemble Su-27 fighter jets using imported materials and equipment. China has also been bringing in machinery required to produce advanced weapon systems, including some illegal imports of supposedly civilian equipment and materials that can be used to construct weapons and their components. Moreover, the country has received weapon-making know-how from Israel Aircraft Industries in the form of assistance in designing and producing its J-10 fighter. 


Technology Imitation
 
Could China leverage cyber espionage to replicate US technologies and weapons, thereby narrowing the military gap? US General Keith B. Alexander describes the looming cyber threat as the “greatest transfer of wealth”, highlighting its profound implications. The concerns about China’s ability to catch up militarily with the US stem from the concept of “Backward Advantage”. This theory was formulated by the Russian-American economist Alexander Gerschenkron, according to which the developing countries can take advantage of a developed country by free-riding on a mature technology already developed by that country. Consequently, the developing country, thanks to industrial espionage, cyber espionage and reverse engineering, would have at its disposal much more information on how to duplicate that technology, avoiding the mistakes of the innovators and likely facing lower costs than the developed country at the beginning of the innovation process. Following this argument, the military gap narrows, allowing the developing country to redirect unused resources toward enhancing existing technology.
 
The current texts on international relations accept that globalization and communication advancements allow countries with cyber espionage to easily copy foreign weapons systems. While technology was relatively easy to copy in the past, scholars argue that the communication age has made it even simpler. Technology will eventually spread and become accessible to adversaries as well, a concern shared among military experts and scholars. In an interview released to the New York Times, Richard Clarke, American national security expert and former government official, claims the Chinese cyberattacks destroy the US competitive edge by “stealing huge amounts of available data and intellectual property”. Similarly, Michael C. Horowitz, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, when talking about the diffusion of military power, claims that “it is [not] difficult to copy […] specific technologies”. 
 
This theory, however, lacks empirical evidence and does not have solid foundations. What traditional international theory does not take into account is the role of complexity. As Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli note, before the 19th century, innovation was mainly driven by intuition and creativity, factors that could be transferred from one country to another without incurring insurmountable obstacles. This is why technology used to develop uniformly and rapidly across borders. However, since the Second Industrial Revolution, the complexity of military technology has significantly increased. The number of components inside a military weapon has skyrocketed, and even such components have become drastically sophisticated. Integrating a large number of highly sophisticated components poses several challenges, mainly the necessity to ensure a high degree of accuracy and precision, considering that minor defects could potentially compromise the functionality of the weapon. This increase in complexity has, as a consequence, made the imitation of foreign weapons systems far more difficult. Just extracting and investing resources is no longer enough to shrink developing countries’ gap with the world’s most advanced nations.
 
Today, in order to “free ride”, several requirements are needed: without the right capabilities —knowledge, research centers, production facilities and a prepared workforce — the imitator is forced to develop an advanced scientific base before it can copy a foreign technology. Due to the high number of disciplines involved in the production of a weapon, the difficulties faced by an imitator have dramatically increased and the entry barriers might even hinder any attempt at imitation. Nowadays, the unique requirements to produce weapon systems, which are usually not possessed by commercial companies, represent a key constraint to emulation. Furthermore, the knowledge needed to produce a certain technology has become increasingly less codifiable and, consequently, harder to steal. As a result, the Chinese government still struggles to achieve true parity with the most advanced military technologies. Specifically, the Chengdu J-20, a fighter that was supposed to compete with the F-22 Raptor, is clear evidence of the challenges China is facing in imitating American technology. 
The J-20's performance at the 2022 Changchun Air Show.
The J-20's performance at the 2022 Changchun Air Show. 

F-22 Raptor vs J-20

China's military aviation industry is undergoing substantial transformations in its organization, modus operandi, and value proposition. To this day, a lot of the military equipment coming out of China’s aviation sector is still outdated compared to that of Western countries. For example, some of the fighter jets and attack aircraft they are building are based on Soviet designs from the 1950s. However, in the 1990s, China started developing a fifth-generation fighter, a development that has been seen as an attempt to imitate the American F-22 Raptor.

The Lockheed F-22 Raptor is a U.S.-made supersonic stealth fighter jet with twin engines, belonging to the so-called fifth-generation fighter category. Formally entering service in December 2005, the aircraft had no match when it was fielded. With a “first-look, first-shoot, first-kill” capability, it will likely maintain air supremacy of the US in air-to-air and air-to-ground roles in the 21st century. This unique advantage is granted by its ability to collect data from multiple sensors, to accurately and automatically develop tracking files on the targets and to do so before getting detected by enemy sensors. Furthermore, continuous assessments of the tactical situation are made to assist the pilot in managing defensive measures. The specific build of the fighter not only significantly enhances the effectiveness of the operations, but also grants flexibility. In addition, the application of stealth technology has dramatically reduced the range of observability of the fighter to enemy sensors. 

In 2017, China commissioned the J-20 Black Eagle, an operational stealth fighter, designed to undermine the US supremacy on fifth-generation fighters. The stealth fighter was developed by Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. The J-20 prototype design displays several stealth technology features developed and employed in the construction of the United States’ F-22 Raptor. Despite the massive amount of data stolen from the US Pentagon, as well as access to American expertise through industrial and cyber espionage and the significant transfer of technology from more advanced countries, many military experts claim the effectiveness of China’s J-20 to be not even close to that of the F-22.

Firstly, several design flaws dramatically increase the detectability of both radar and thermal sensors. Some components of the aircraft are not compatible with high stealth performance, such as the aft fuselage, tail boom and axisymmetric nozzles. These components are less feasible at reducing the aircraft’s Radar Cross Section (RCS) since they might create radar reflections, rendering them more detectable by enemy radar systems. In particular, certain parts of the J-20’s structure or materials used are less effective at reducing radar reflectivity for horizontally polarized waves. This is why performance is notably poorer in the horizontal polarization. In addition, the use of moving slab stabilators and canards has an impact on RCS during maneuvers requiring large deviations, limiting stealth effectiveness. There is no evidence that the Chinese military has developed advanced radar-absorbent materials.

Secondly, China lacks turbofan engines capable of supercruise, the ability of an aircraft to sustain supersonic flight speeds without using up additional combustion. Although China can produce turbojet engines, no turbofan engines have yet been installed in Chinese aircraft. The turbofan engine is the most modern variation of the basic gas turbine engine since it can create both a high-pressure thrust and a low-pressure thrust. The incoming air is captured by the engine inlet. As in a basic turbojet, some of it passes the fan, continues into the core compressor, and then into the burner, where combustion occurs thanks to some fuel. The remaining part passes through the fan, goes around the engine and its velocity is increased from the free stream. Therefore, a turbofan gets some of its velocity through the core and some from the fan. The combination of high-pressure thrust and low-pressure thrust is more efficient than high-pressure thrust alone. Until very recently, Chinese manufacturers were not able to produce turbofan engines, leading them to heavily rely on Russian underpowered engines that did not provide super-cruise capabilities, leaving a visible trail.

Finally, the imitation attempt has not resulted in any advantage, even in terms of relative costs. According to some estimates, the J-20 has a unit cost that ranges from $100 million to $120 million. On the contrary, the F-22 costs $143 million per plane. Therefore, the advantage cost obtained by China is about 14-20%. At first glance, this may seem to be a significant advantage, but it is far less impressive. Firstly, as already discussed, the Chinese military still needs to fix a wide range of problems, spanning from the engine to the low stealth effectiveness, and all these interventions will surely require sizable investments. Secondly, while China has largely benefited from cyber espionage and the transfer of foreign technology, the J-20 is not yet fully operational. A transition to operating them would surely increase costs when we consider their maintenance.


Conclusion

These three factors and the difficulty of developing flight control software prove that China will continue to lag behind the most advanced military producers unless fundamental reforms are undertaken. The People’s Liberation Army must undergo extensive trial and error to address all the design flaws and intricate problems that weapons development entails. Indeed, Chinese strategists and statesmen dislike depending on other countries for their national security, which explains why their ultimate goal is to return to “self-reliance” in weapon systems. The PLA's ability to emancipate from foreign technology largely depends on the ability of China’s industries to overcome past deficiencies and produce advanced technology, gradually abandoning espionage that is inconsistent with their objective of self-reliance. But for now, with these left unaddressed, the US weapon system arsenal remains largely unrivaled.  




Bibliography:

                                                  

Allen, W. K., Krumel, G., & Pollack, J. D. (1995), “China’s Air Force Enters the 21st Century”, Rand Corporation, from 


Center for Strategic and International Studies (n.d.), “ Survey of Chinese Espionage in the United States Since 2000”, from 


Gilli, A., & Gilli, M. (2018), “Why China has not caught up yet: military-technological superiority and the limits of imitation, reverse engineering, and cyber espionage”, International Security, 43(3), 141-189, from https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/43/3/141/12218/Why-China-Has-Not-Caught-Up-Yet-Military


Horowitz, M. C. (2010), “The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics”, Princeton: Princeton University Press, from https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400835102



Ministry of National Defense of People’s Republic of China. “Defense policy”, from http://eng.mod.gov.cn/xb/DefensePolicy/index.html#:~:text=China%20has%20the%20firm%20resolve,any%20means%20at%20any%20time.


‌NASA (2021), “Turbofan Engine”, from https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/Animation/turbtyp/etff.html   


New York Times (April 2, 2012), “How China steals our secrets”,  from


Pelosi, M. J., & Kopp, C. (July 4, 2011), “A Preliminary Assessment of Specular Radar Cross Section Performance in the Chengdu J-20 Prototype,” Air Power Australia Analysis, from https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2011-03.html


Reuters (April 18, 2024), “Chinese spies target Dutch industries to strengthen military, intelligence agency says”, from


Reuters (May 13, 2024), “ Us to force China-linked firm to sell land near US missile silos”, from

  

Reuters (September 18, 2023), “FBI chief says China has bigger hacking program than the competition combined”, from


Wall Street Journal (October 14, 2024), “Scale of Chinese Spying Overwhelms Western Governments”, from 


 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page