… whether Sarkozy had seen this draft report or the Bloomberg news report on Chinese cyber attacks before calling up Papa Wen or Uncle Hu in China for funding. Just what would China seek or ask for or take it without asking is something that Europe has not thought about or not thought about too seriously or is not letting the rest of the European public on. That is a shame.

This extract should disturb any head of Government even if he/she does not find it outright chilling.

The Chinese military also has been focused on its U.S. counterpart, which it considers too reliant on computers. In a conflict, the Chinese would try to “compromise, disrupt, deny, degrade, deceive or destroy” U.S. space and computer systems, the draft says.

“This could critically disrupt the U.S. military’s ability to deploy and operate during a military contingency,” according to the draft.

Other cyber intrusions with possible Chinese involvement included the so-called Night Dragon attacks on energy and petrochemical companies and an effort to compromise the Gmail accounts of U.S. government officials, journalists and Chinese political activists, according to the draft.

Often the attacks are found to have come from Chinese Internet-protocol, or IP, addresses.

Businesses based in other countries and operating in China think that computer network intrusions are among the “most serious threats to their intellectual property,” the draft says.

The threat extends to companies not located in China. On March 22, U.S. Internet traffic was “improperly” redirected through a network controlled by Beijing-based China Telecom Corp. Ltd., the state-owned largest provider of broadband Internet connections in the country, the draft said.

In its draft of last year’s report, the commission highlighted China’s ability to direct Internet traffic and exploit “hijacked” data. [The full Bloomberg report here].

This post originally appeared at The Gold Standard and is reproduced with permission.