Americans could once rest comfortably in the assumption that they possessed overwhelming technological dominance. But China’s government is working hard to prove them wrong.

by Michael G. McLaughlin William J. Holstein

In the technology battles between the United States and China, the sensational hacks of American information technology systems revealed by the Department of Justice and the controversies over Huawei’s 5G wireless communications technology and TikTok’s video app dominate the headlines.

But the Chinese government of President Xi Jinping appears to be quietly setting the stage for a more pervasive, ongoing penetration of America’s networks, creating a national security problem that chief executive officers can no longer ignore or minimize. As part of its Digital Silk Road strategy, China is actively pursuing several vectors to achieve outright dominance of the world’s computer systems, including America’s.

The most concerning vector for companies operating in China appears to be a series of new Chinese laws that began taking effect in 2015 covering national security, national intelligence, and cybersecurity. Collectively, they have set the legal groundwork for the Chinese Communist Party to access all network activity that occurs in China or in communications that cross its borders. The culmination of this legal maneuvering appears to be the updated Multi-Level Protection System (MLPS 2.0), which came into effect in December 2019 and is gradually being rolled out.