A senior British intelligence official warned Friday (April 23) that the West risks ceding control of some technologies to countries such as China and Russia if it does not act to counter the threat. Those technologies are critical to Internet security and economic prosperity.
According to the Associated Press, Jeremy Fleming, director of the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), said in a speech that “important technology leadership is shifting eastward,” raising the question of conflicting interests and values. He mentioned China as a particular threat.
He mentioned China as a particular threat because its “size and technological weight means it has the potential to control the global operating system.
He said China has embraced emerging technologies early on, that it also “has a competing vision for the future of cyberspace” and that it is influential in the debate around international rules and standards.
Countries with “narrow values” like China, he said, have the potential to embed them in the technology standards on which the world ultimately depends, and use state power to control and dominate technology markets, turning them into arenas for geopolitical competition.
Left unchecked, Fleming said, foreign adversaries could threaten the design and freedom of the Internet. He cited the security of emerging technologies as an example, saying that “smart city” sensors intended for more efficient management of services or digital currencies could be used for data collection or other intrusive functions that run counter to an open and democratic society.
Fleming added that the U.K. and other Western countries are facing a “reckoning”.
“Rule changes are not always controlled by governments,” he said, “and if no action is taken, it is increasingly clear that the key technologies on which our future prosperity and security depend will not be shaped and controlled by the West.”
Also according to Reuters, Fleming said Russia remains the biggest immediate threat facing the West, but that communist China’s long-standing dominance in technology poses a bigger problem.
“Russia is influencing the weather and China is shaping the climate,” he said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday that the British comments in question were baseless and unjustified. He also accused the United States, Britain and other Western countries of being “hacker empires” and “eavesdropping empires.
He added: “China firmly opposes any institution or country using cybersecurity issues to throw dirty water on China or to serve its political purposes.”
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