In an unprecedented move, the US Justice Department this week charged five Chinese People’s Liberation Army officers with stealing information from US companies by hacking into their websites. The officers are based in Shanghai and there is no real possibility of their ever going to jail in the US.
China is understandably outraged by the move and has in the past demanded that the US stop obstructing market access of Chinese computer hardware and software falsely claiming that chips manufactured by some of its companies compromise data.
China has also alleged that US National Security Agency contractors routinely snoop on its citizens, businesses and the armed forces.
Nothing new there. Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor now in exile in Russia, has been periodically leaking classified information to bare the extent of US spying on friends and foes alike. In fact, President Obama had to apologize to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, heads of countries friendly to Washington but economic competitors, for the NSA’s actions. He promise they won’t be repeated.
Nonetheless, Washington justifies its policy of aggressive spying on one and all with the stated argument that it protects its citizens from terrorists and its industries from economic rivals. No one has a problem with a country trying to protect its citizens from violence, but certainly no country has the right to jail the citizen of another country for harming its economic interests.
If breaking into the website of a US company is a crime punishable by a prison sentence, so is eavesdropping of world leaders and their business delegations ahead of trade talks. After all the aim of hackers at both ends is the same — to take unfair economic advantage.
How has the world reached this stage where a country threatens to jail the citizens of another for harming its economic interests? This has been long in the making.
It started with protecting intellectual property rights or patents. With a clear head start with the Industrial Revolution, the West has an advantage. Western companies have patented almost all inventions, ludicrously even strains of Basmati rice and turmeric, which are native to the Indian Subcontinent, and anyone trying to manufacture similar products risks going to jail for violating some patent or the other.
Yes you can avoid going to prison, if you do business under license from the patent owner. In other words, you pay the patent owner for ever.
In the years ahead, expect to hear more exchanges of accusations, indictments and open threats between countries. Welcome to 21st Century neocolonialism.
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