More than 30 countries across Europe, North America and Asia yesterday joined in revealing and condemning the Chinese government’s Ministry of State Security’s work with Chinese cyber hackers and cybercriminals to hack companies, governments and other organisations globally, stealing valuable intellectual property and even conducting ransomware attacks.
The grouping included Japan, the United States and, through NATO, 28 European nations, as well as New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Far from being an issue involving only Beijing and Washington as part of strategic competition between two great powers, this behaviour from the Chinese state shows that China poses a systemic challenge to all open societies. So it’s not a surprise that this large and growing group of governments is working more closely together to face it. They’re the same grouping we saw coming together on China at the G7-plus meetings in Cornwall last month.