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Upcoming Cyberwars
Jamyang writes "In the run-up to the first anniversary of September 11, Taiwan's President has accused China of threatening Taipei with "terrorist" tactics in a speech that will fuel Beijing's current fury: "Communist China has accelerated development of 'unrestricted warfare' similar to terrorist methods," he said. Reuters man in Taipei reckon he's referring to "Unrestricted Warfare" [PDF] by leading PLA strategists - Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui - who famously argued that China should focus on "asymmetric engagement" in the 21st century. In fact, many related secret documents have leaked out of China lately. Taiwan's Defense Ministry is taking the threat of infowar very seriously, as can be seen in their 2002 Defense Whitepaper. If the U.S. gets tied up in a ground war in the Middle East, China's going to be real tempted ...."
I know it has been said before, but this is really too tempting. Are all government leaders using Clancy's latest novels to determine their course of action?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
...and those evil linux 'hackers' in China will be prosecuted, then a joint-venture will pop up between China and the US to prosecute everything that has the word 'hacking' into it - expecially the linux kernel.
:)
Damn, look at those linux guys, they have hacking also in the core of their operating system! thank god Palladium will save us.
now let's see your sense of humour
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Now that the US has decided to wage a war against terrorism many other countries have decided to crack down own their own internal problem populations by painting them with the terrorist brush.
Russia did it with chechnians, China did with the minority muslim population in the west. In the case of Israel it has used the post 9-11 US position to crack down much harder on the palestenians to the point of putting eight hundred thousand people under curfew and starving the population into submission.
Before 9-11 all of these actions would have been objectionable to the US govt and the public at large but post 9-11 nobody has raised an eyebrow.
Even in the US anybody who disagrees with the govt gets tagged with the terrorist label. The environmentalists, the "anti globalists", hackers, music swappers, open source developers etc.
It should not surprise anybody to see taiwan jumping on board this bandwagon.
My suspicion is that the term will dilute itself just like the word nazi did after it got overused so much. Feminazi, green nazi, surf nazi, soup nazi etc. When you start labeling everybody with the same tag pretty soon the label encompasses so many people it loses it's potency.
War is necrophilia.
I would submit that Taiwan itself is more of a deterrent than the US for preventing any hostility between China and Taiwan... the reason is simple: Taiwan is now China's third largest investor, next to the US and Japan -- even despite limits on investment activity set by the Taiwanese government. Other than the most advanced technology, much of Taiwan's high-tech manufacturing, such as chip fabs, has been farmed out to factories in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, as well as many other parts of China. The relationship is a lot like say, US and Mexico for instance.
Taiwan pumps a LOT into the Chinese economy, and the Chinese know it. The leaders of China may be aggressive, because face is everything, and they want to maintain a strong posture to the world. Nevertheless, they are not irrational or suicidal. A trade embargo between Taiwan and China would be plenty damaging enough, even without US military intervention (which is also a guarantee -- Taiwan and the US are still subject to terms of their mutual defense treaty, signed as part of US switching diplomatic recognition to the PRC in 1979.)
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I think perhaps you have it backwards - could it be that non-Americans hate the US so much because the United States is always cleaning up spilled milk?
For example, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll last week, 69 per cent of Canadians said the U.S. shares some of the responsibility for the attacks, while 15 per cent said all of the responsibility sits on American shoulders.
If we Canadians feel that way, how does the rest of the world feel? You are bound to get stung when you stick your hand in the hornets' nest looking for honey.
Terrorism! That's the new blanket statement we can use for everything it seems.
I couldn't believe it the other day when I hired a video and the first five minutes was about the evils of pirating, and it ended by saying that the money from pirate videos supports drug smugglers and terrorists. I don't know why they don't just go the whole hog and add padeophiles to the list. And the French.
(Only joking Frenchies).
(Only joking Frenchies).
Actually whether you know it or not you're not joking see this article if you don't know what I'm talking about.
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
We used nuclear weapons. As you know, that causes 8 squares of pollution and makes everyone hate you.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?