China is increasingly using cyberespionage to extract diplomatic, military and industrial secrets held within American computer information networks, according to a Washington congressional panel. In its annual report to Congress, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that China is aggressively pursuing cyberwarfare capabilities in order to gain an advantage over America in any future conflict.

Consider the following from Agence France-Presse:

“Since China’s current cyber operations capability is so advanced, it can engage in forms of cyberwarfare so sophisticated that the United States may be unable to counteract or even detect the efforts,” the commission said.It said Chinese hacker groups may be operating with government support.”By some estimates, there are 250 hacker groups in China that are tolerated and may even be encouraged by the government to enter and disrupt computer networks,” the commission said.It quoted Col. Gary McAlum, chief of staff for the U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations, as saying China has recognized the importance of cyber operations as a tool of warfare and “has the intent and capability to conduct cyber operations anywhere in the world at any time.””China is aggressively pursuing cyberwarfare capabilities that may provide it with an asymmetric advantage against the United States,” the commission said. “In a conflict situation, this advantage would reduce current U.S. conventional military dominance.”

The number of cyberattacks on U.S. government, defense companies and businesses rose by a third in 2007. Many of the 43,880 identifiable cyberattacks that year came from China.

Computer dependence is the most vulnerable point in America’s military defense system. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has warned of this vulnerability since January 1995, when he wrote: “America is the greatest superpower this world has ever known. But we have a very vulnerable point in our military—our own Achilles heel. … Exploiting this vulnerable point may trigger the greatest shock in the history of warfare! … Computer dependence is the Western world’s Achilles heel, and within a few years this weakness could be tested to the full.”

For more information on this weakness and where it will lead, read “China’s Quiet War” and “America’s Achilles Heel—and Germany.”