Cybersecurity in China

Book excerpt: This book offers the first benchmarking study of China’s response to the problems of security in cyber space. There are several useful descriptive books on cyber security policy in China published between 2010 and 2016. As a result, we know quite well the system for managing cyber security in China, and the history of policy responses. What we don’t know so well, and where this book is useful, is how capable China has become in this domain relative to the rest of the world. This book is a health check, a report card, on China’s cyber security system in the face of escalating threats from criminal gangs and hostile states. The book also offers an assessment of the effectiveness of China’s efforts. It lays out the major gaps and shortcomings in China’s cyber security policy. It is the first book to base itself around an assessment of China’s cyber industrial complex, concluding that China does not yet have one. As Xi Jinping said in July 2016, the country’s core technologies are dominated by foreigners.