Who gave America the right to launch network assaults? (2)

Email|Print|Comments       twitter     facebook     Sina Microblog     reddit    

The U.S. has no inherent right to peep into the sovereign territory of other countries that is represented by their private information. The United States is entitled to maintain its sovereignty of the network as far as its own self-defense is concerned, but it does not have the right to infringe the security of the network for inappropriate preemptive purposes.

On the one hand the United States demands that other countries refrain from carrying out network attacks by citing its rights to protect its national security and its intellectual property. On the other hand, it ignores the sovereign rights of other countries and attacks their networks in order to get access to information on their national security and their intellectual property rights. This is a serious violation of other countries' lawful security and economic interests. The recent revelations have shown that U.S. actions strayed far beyond any of the requirements of its anti-terrorism strategy, and into the realm of industrial espionage to obtain access to the technology development strategy of other sovereign powers.

The U.S. surveillance program could not have remained hidden forever. Such blatant self-interest could not have been accepted even by the U.S. government’s own employees. The Snowden revelations were not an accident - other agents would have exposed this secret if he had not. The scale of the infringement of rights and interests of other countries that has been exposed to public scrutiny not only goes beyond what the government’s partners in the United States can tolerate, it exceeds what the country’s allies abroad find acceptable.

The U.S. cannot use national security as a pretext for its network attacks upon other countries, and maintain its position as self-appointed moral policeman to the rest of the world. More importantly, with the rapid development of globalization, the advanced science and technology that is currently the preserve of the United States is very quickly spreading, and network attacks will no longer be a weapon to which the U.S. has exclusive access. This could put the United States in an extremely fragile position.

Edited and translated by Zhang Qian, People's Daily Online

Read the Chinese version: 谁给了美国网络攻击权；source: People's Daily Overseas Edition; author:Shen Dingli

We Recommend

• Helicopters, tanks seen during China-Russia joint drill
• Conjoined twins separated in groundbreaking surgery
• Junpa village: The only fishing village in Tibet
• Argentina's president voices support of ruling party
• 3D painting, new way to promote apartment sale
• Review: Asian Men's Basketball Championship