Chinese theft of sensitive US military technology is a huge problem -- Defense analyst

• One of the reasons China is narrowing the military-technology gap with the U.S. is because of the theft of designs and other sensitive data.
• Donald Trump may bring up China's theft of American intellectual property during his talks with his Chinese counterpart this week
• Beijing is still up to its old tricks and using various ways to camouflage its cyber-warfare

By Jeff Daniels 

A J-20 stealth fighter of China flies at the 11th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov. 1, 2016.

As Donald Trump uses his meeting with Xi Jinping to address trade and North Korean issues, he also may bring up China's theft of American intellectual property.
Despite a cyber-warfare truce, one defense analyst said China is probably still engaged in the theft of sensitive U.S. military technology. 

Hacking over the years is one of the reasons China has been able to narrow the gap with the U.S. in advanced missiles, drone technology and even stealth aircraft.
Also, a report predicts that by 2030 the Chinese could dominate artificial intelligence and exploit it for military purposes.
At the same time, China is pressing its domestic tech firms to help the country's military "to speed up" the application of advanced technology.
For example, when China wanted to build the J-20, a new stealth fighter jet, they were reportedly helped by industrial espionage. 

The J-20 became operational in September.
There were said to be several prototypes of the plane, but the final sleek design resembles the F-22, a stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin. 

China's smaller stealth fighter, called the FC-31 Gyrfalcon, in development is seen as a knockoff of Lockheed's F-35.
"What Beijing has been very good at is targeting U.S. defense contractors, getting into their computer systems through various types of essentially cyber warfare and stealing the designs of America's best military assets," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank founded by former President Richard Nixon.
Although a U.S.-Chinese cyber-hacking truce was announced in 2015, Kazianis and others remain skeptical it will matter over the long term. 

He says China has agents in other countries still doing hacking or "camouflage" such activity through various methods.
"So we don't even have a good idea if they stopped," he said. 

"It's obviously a huge, huge problem."
According to Kazianis, the Chinese have been able to hack into computer networks to steal designs and other information on U.S. carriers, advanced defense systems as well as the F-22 and F-35 jets.
Indeed, a federal grand jury in 2014 indicted a Chinese national for a computer hacking scheme that involved the theft of trade secrets from Boeing's C-17 military transport aircraft. 

The individual, who last year entered a guilty plea, also was accused of working with two co-conspirators based in China to steal military data about the F-22 and F-35 jets.
The concern is China's supersonic J-20 could one day become a threat to the F-22 and the smaller F-35 fighters.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, said Beijing's "J-20 has the potential to considerably enhance China's regional military strength."
For one, the J-20's could give China an advantage should it want to use the warplane in a dogfight with the U.S. or allies. 

Also, depending on its stealth capabilities, the J-20 could be used for strikes on Taiwan or U.S. airbases.
Then again, the J-20's design may make it susceptible to detection. 

It features angles that allow it to deflect radar emissions from the front but reports suggest its signature reduction falls short elsewhere. 

Portions of the J-20's engines also "may work against its stealth capabilities," according to CSIS.
"Almost every fighter in the world has some kind of emissions that come out with radar or communications devices just like radios that we can detect," said John JV Venable, a senior research fellow for defense policy at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington conservative think tank. 

"When we can pick those [emissions] up, then we can actually find, fix and kill that fighter."
Venable, a retired Air Force colonel, said the U.S. military's ability to "mask emissions is very good, and our ability to detect is very good. We just don't know what theirs is [with the J-20]."

China's New Jet Looks Impressive. Aided By Espionage Against US

By Tobin Harshaw

There was a brief but impressive show of new U.S. aircraft technology this week. 

The problem is that the planes belong to the Chinese military.
Aided in large part by espionage against the Pentagon and U.S. firms, the People's Liberation Army air force unveiled its new J-20 stealth fighter, which it says is a so-called fifth-generation fighter like the American F-22 and F-35. 

Two J-20s flew for just a few minutes at an airshow in Zhuhai on Tuesday, leaving military experts of two minds about what the J-20 is actually capable of.

QuickTake Territorial Disputes
While Bradley Perrett of Aviation Week warned it was "clearly a big step forward in Chinese combat capability," Greg Waldon of the consultancy FlightGlobal said the big reveal of the flyby was "we learned it was loud."
If the sparse details released by the Chinese and speculation of military insiders are accurate, the plane could present some problems should the cool war in the South China Sea heat up. 

The jet is said to have a longer range and more armament than the competing U.S. fighters, and while it doesn't likely have the computer systems to pose a threat to them, it could make easy targets of American refueling and surveillance craft.
But as far as U.S. officials are concerned, these capacities exist only in rumor. 

This is a common theme in all the Western fretting about China's cutting edge military prowess: Nobody knows whether any of it is real.
Consider the Chinese military's "carrier-killer missile," the DF-21D. 

It was unveiled last year, during China's celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, amid a hype campaign calling it the fastest missile in the world. 

In the U.S. military, there is speculation that it has radar that can see over the horizon and a maneuverable warhead that allows precision guidance as it nears its target. 

This has some experts warning that the age of the American aircraft carrier is over.
But, again, there is little proof that this missile is real or that China has any of the capabilities that so worry the West. 

The same can be said of the YJ-12 missile, which is said to fly just above the surface of the water to avoid radar tracking. 

While we've seen these weapons in parades, demonstrations and airshows, the real question is what's inside. 

"Chinese 'hardware' continues to improve dramatically, but the caliber of the 'software' supporting and connecting it remains uncertain and untested in war," noted analyst Andrew Erickson in the National Interest. 

"The missile components of the DF-21D already are proven through multiple tests, but China's ability to use the missile against a moving target operating in the open ocean remains unproven."
Then there is the new Type 093B nuclear-powered attack submarine, which some fear may be as deadly as the U.S. Navy's Los Angeles-class boats. 

"The 93B is analogous to our LA improved in quietness and their appearance demonstrates that China is learning quickly about how to build a modern fast attack boat," according to Gary Hendrix of the Center for a New American Security. 

But high-ranking Navy officials are more sanguine, noting that in undersea warfare the Chinese approach has centered on quantity over quality -- Beijing is thought to have at least 70 attack subs, as compared to around 50 for the U.S. -- and the consensus among the top Pentagon brass is that China is unlikely to have made the leaps in technology some fear.
So what does this all mean for long-term U.S. strategy (beyond, of course, getting better at protecting our military secrets)? 

If we take the threat of Chinese advances seriously, the first step would be to take a tough look at plans to build 10 new Ford-class supercarriers, which would be quite vulnerable if the Chinese are really as far along as some fear. 

This doesn't mean giving up on carriers -- as forward-based platforms that don't rely on allies for hosting aircraft, they remain vital. 

But the wiser fiscal and preparedness choice may be stopping after the three supercarriers now under construction are completed and renovating five or so of the existing Nimitz-class, which are still far and away the terror of the seas. 

Through smarter management of maintenance and crew rotations, eight craft could conceivably do as effective a job patrolling the globe as the Navy's hoped-for 10. (Carriers will always, alas, be more vulnerable than fake islands.)
Another idea is to make the U.S. fleet more dispersed and effective through emphasizing "distributed-lethality warfare." 

This would involve making far more ships in the fleet -- including those responsible for reconnaissance, specialized missions such as mine dispersal, and protecting aircraft carriers -- capable of both striking the enemy and defending themselves. 

This gives the enemy more threats to protect against and more targets to eliminate. 

To some extent the Navy seems to be considering the approach; for example, it has upgraded the armor, weaponry and anti-torpedo capability of its troubled littoral combat ship.
Inevitably, long-term military thinking is an exercise in predicting what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called known unknowns. 

The J-20 flyby showed only how little we know about China's drive to become a cutting-edge military.