Doesn’t matter – the AFF is about the perception that China is aggressive which means the U.S will always try to make sure they can be more powerful.

The US government has repeatedly raised its concerns regarding potential security risks from these companies due to the influence of the Chinese government over its firms, proclaiming that the Chinese government “may force Chinese suppliers or manufacturers to modify products to perform below expectations or fail, facilitate state or corporate espionage, or otherwise compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of IoT devices” (USCC, 2018, p.461). Given China’s notorious cyberattacks reputation, new tensions pertaining to the AI-cyber nexus may emerge in the near future. Cyber tactics such as cyber espionage and attacks have become a cost-effective modus operandi for states, especially China, in relation to ETs and offer a means to acquire otherwise inaccessible or heavily guarded information, providing a substantial advantage in the rapid advancement of these technologies. According to US think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, between 2000 and 2023, 224 incidents were recorded, with 49% involving actors tied to the Chinese military and government. Moreover, over 1200 cyber espionage cases in either China or the US are currently under investigation (CSIS 2023a, b). Some estimates propose that the US economy suffers an annual loss of US$300 billion due to Chinese cyber espionage operations, affecting areas from quantum computing and semiconductors to AI (Laskai and Segal 2018). Over time, there have been long-standing allegations of cyber espionage efforts by China along with forced technology transfers through mergers with Western companies, which have raised significant concerns among the US and its allies and partners (Lindsay et al. 2015). At the same time, in its 2022 Annual Threat Assessment, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) included the following passages regarding China’s cyber capabilities and intentions: “China presents the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to US Government and private sector networks. China’s cyber pursuits and export of related technologies increase the threats of attacks against the US homeland. China almost certainly is capable of launching cyberattacks that would disrupt critical infrastructure services within the United States, including against oil and gas pipelines and rail systems” (ODNI 2022, 8). Between 2005 and 2022, 237 cyber operations carried out by China (state sponsored) were reported (according to Council of Foreign Affairs Cyber Operations Tracker 2023), which can be interpreted as aggressive actions of malicious intent.

Similarly, China’s disinformation campaigns reinforce the assessment of China’s intentions as aggressive. Since 2015, has expanded social media disinformation campaigns, and established a separate unit for the conduct of information warfare, the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) (Harold et al. 2021). While China has been mainly using information manipulation domestically, for instance, during the Hong Kong protests using Western social media such as Twitter (Beskow and Carley 2020), its latest extensive disinformation campaigns have posed a significant risk to US and other actors’ intelligence operations and national security. Indeed, China (similar to Russia) has been accused of spreading disinformation campaigns and propaganda amid the COVID-19 crisis by both the EU and the US (European Parliament 2020; US Embassy in Georgia 2020), with the goal of advancing “anti-Western views, and spread[ing] false information to create divisions between the United States and its partners and allies” (White House 2020, p. 7).

Finally, when it comes to intellectual theft, the US has accused Chinese companies of stealing or misusing intellectual property rights from US companies and also forced technology transfers (van der Linden and Łasak 2023). For instance, the 2021 Microsoft Exchange breach, linked to APT31 and APT40, compromised 300,000 organizations globally as claimed by Microsoft, the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries (Jarnecki and Dawda 2023). Accordingly, in their newly initiated national cyber strategies, countries like the US and the UK, have characterized China as a “systemic competitor”Footnote26 and indicated that its aggressive acts in cyberspace pose national challenges while also indicating that “states with revisionist intent are aggressively using advanced cyber capabilities to pursue objectives that run counter to our interests and broadly accepted international norms”.Footnote27 China’s global position, particularly in the realm of ETs, can be, thus, characterized as assertive or aggressive in our framework of analysis.