Bloomberg Business Cover Story on Chinese Espionage Validates Our Predictions

In our prediction about ongoing story angles that we expect to generate coverage this year (available here), we said one to watch is:

The rising threat of Chinese businesses, the Chinese economy and the Chinese military.

In the current cover story of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Michael Riley and Ashlee Vance write, "Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage," a detailed analysis of what they call "The Great Brain Robbery." There are at least 20 examples of corporate espionage conducted by the Chinese -- with support from China's intelligence agencies. In fact, the article quotes the director of the NSA as saying, "It's the greatest transfer of wealth in history."

It's a fascinating, frustrating look at the costs and risks of doing business in China. What's amazing is that the US firms cited are major corporations like Apple, Boeing, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Ford, GM, Goodyear, Motorola, Northrup -- companies that you would have expected to be able to through resources enough to prevent themselves from being victimized.

We think this will continue to be a story covered by the media -- but, strangely enough since it's an economic issue, not a campaign issue during the remainder of the GOP primary season.  (We say that because the cover story did not generate the buzz we would have expected.)  How the country deals with China on economic, political and military issues will become even more important through the rest of the decade, and having a thought-out well-crafted policy will be important. So I wonder why that's not a campaign issue yet.

Actually, after posting this, I found an article from today's Times, "The Electoral Math of Romney's Stance on Trade with China," which provides context to how trade issues with China are being discussed. Worth reading.

Of course, that may change in the fall.

What do you think? Let us know.

More Validation from WSJ about Our Cybersecurity

In our prediction about ongoing story angles that we expect to generate coverage this year (available here), we said two to watch are:

• Net-specific issues such as net neutrality (the need to prevent broadband providers from blocking access to competitors), the e-tax loophole (in which e-retailers don’t require customers to pay sales tax, which gives Amazon and others an advantage over bricks-and-mortar retailers that do charge customers sales tax), and anti-piracy legislation (Stop Online Piracy Act aka SOPA and Protect Intellectual Property Act aka PIPA).
• The rising threat of Chinese businesses, the Chinese economy and the Chinese military. 

Recently, the New York Times validated the net-specific issues by continuing to report on security/privacy bills validating our prediction about ongoing stories -- you can check out the links here. 

Today, the Wall St. Journal reported on two of those trends:

•  Cybersecurity Bills Duel Over Rules for Firms
•  FBI Traces Trail of Spy Ring to China

The latter story focuses on the threat to US businesses from Chinese businesses.


Here's another WSJ article I momentarily overlooked: Cybersecurity 2.0: Encouraging companies and intelligence agencies to share information freely is a good first step -- which touches on several of the points we made in our predictions about security.


Let us know if there are trends you think we missed.