Five Eyes' chief warns of China stealing 'intellectual property, trade secrets, and personal data'

The intelligence leaders of the “Five Eyes” alliance, consisting of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have come together to accuse China of posing a substantial global threat. In a joint statement made during the news program ’60 Minutes’ on CBS News, these officials alleged that China is systematically engaged in stealing intellectual property, trade secrets, and personal data on a global scale.

US FBI Director Christopher Wray characterized this collective call as an unprecedented response to an equally unprecedented threat, highlighting the menace posed by China to global innovation. The accusations encompass a broad spectrum of sectors, ranging from quantum technology, robotics, biotechnology, to artificial intelligence.

“China has long targeted businesses with a web of techniques all at once: cyber intrusions, human intelligence operations, seemingly innocuous corporate investments and transactions,” Wray stated, emphasizing that every facet of this approach had grown increasingly audacious and hazardous.

In response, Chinese government spokesperson Liu Pengyu affirmed China’s commitment to intellectual property protection, rejecting what they deemed “groundless allegations and smears.”

The issue of intellectual property theft has long strained US-China relations, but this is the first time that the Five Eyes alliance has collectively voiced its concerns about China’s actions.

Mike Burgess, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s director-general, accused the Chinese government of conducting “the most sustained, scaled, and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history.” He highlighted a recent incident in which a Chinese plot to infiltrate an Australian research institution was uncovered, involving the placement of an academic to steal secrets.

The recent statement by the Five Eyes group follows their earlier warning in May regarding a widespread Chinese spy operation targeting critical infrastructure and various other sectors, which China dismissed as a “collective disinformation campaign.”

Wray emphasized that China’s hacking program, when combined with physical espionage and the theft of trade secrets, gave China an unprecedented level of power. He called for private industry and academia to collaborate in countering these threats, with a particular focus on the risks associated with artificial intelligence tools.

“We worry about AI as an amplifier for all sorts of misconduct,” Wray said, asserting that China outpaced all other nations in terms of stealing personal and corporate data by orders of magnitude.

“The challenge lies in the combination of all these tools being deployed simultaneously at an unprecedented scale,” he added, emphasizing the potential for AI to further amplify the effectiveness of China’s extensive hacking program.

(With input from agencies)

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