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 ...."

Comments

No big surprise there.

[Malcontent]

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.

Re:No big surprise there.

[Elwood P Dowd]

really feel like the USians started the whole trend when GW & gang started talking about evil. GW would like to submit that the terrorists are pure incarnations of evil on Earth, and the USA is 100% righteous.

This is false, of course. And other nations have it worse than us anyway. I don't know about their body count, but terrorism on the part of the Chechnyans and the Palestinians certainly affect the daily lives of Israelis and Russians much more than Americans are effected by Al Qaeda. So, if Al Qaeda is pure evil, then surely the Chechnyans and the Palestinians are worse, right?

It's all political posturing, and it's all bullshit. We must attack Al Qaeda in order to preserve our national security. It has nothing to do with good vs. evil. Good vs. evil is a psuedo-religious sham. Any way, now that unconventional warfare has been equated with evil incarnate, Taiwan would be stupid not to invoke the name of terrorism when dealing with China. It's like calling GW on the phone and saying, "We understand if you're too chicken to deal help us out." Personally, I'm all for it. Just because I like Taiwan, and hope that the US defends its allies.

Re:With that last question I ask another

[neksys]

Why is it that non-Americans hate the US so much, yet it is always the United States cleaning up everyone else's spilled milk, as so to speak?

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.

Re:The new reason for everything!

[pubjames]

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).

Re:The new reason for everything!

[nzhavok]

(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.