Cyberwarfare in China

China is the world's second-largest economy, and a nuclear weapons state with the world's second-largest defence budget.

Chinese Information Operations and Information Warfare includes the concept of “network warfare”, roughly analogous to the United States concept of cyberwarfare.Foreign Policy magazine puts the size of China's "hacker army" at anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 individuals.

Western countries have long accused China of aggressive espionage, but although officials and organisations have traced various attacks on corporate and infrastructure computer systems in their countries to computers in China "It is nearly impossible to know whether or not an attack is government-sponsored because of the difficulty in tracking true identities in cyberspace" and China has denied accusations of cyberwarfare, and has accused the United States of engaging in cyberwarfare against it - which the US government in turn denies.

Although details are a little sketchy, it is understood that China organises its resources as follows:

Chinese universities, businesses and politicians have been subjected to cyber espionage by the United States National Security Agency since 2009 according to Edward Snowden and to defend their own networks, the PLA announced a cyber security squad in May 2011.

Organisations, companies and governments in a number of countries have alleged incidents of "hacking" or espionage by China.

In May 2013, ABC News claimed that China hacked plans for the headquarters of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

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