The Japanese Diet’s Internet server has been hit by a cyber-attack apparently mounted from China and had vital information stolen without the victims noticing it for as long as a month, the influential newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported October 25.

　　　Passwords and other information belonging to some 2,660 people were stolen. Hit were all 480 members of the Japanese Diet’s lower house, their state-funded secretaries, and the chamber’s employees. Beginning in late July, emails to and from Diet members and sensitive materials they possessed were pilfered and transmitted to a Chinese server with the entire Diet completely unaware of this, according to Asahi.

　　　Cyber-attackers have targeted not only Tokyo’s Nagata-cho district, the hub of Japanese politics, but also major corporations such as Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and IHI (also known as Ishikawajima) heavy industries. The attacks contained a variety of viruses. In case of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., a major player in Japan’s defense industry, more than 50 different viruses were said to have infiltrated the firm’s server. Investigators have referred to an incredible case in which a corporation failed to notice for up to a year that its computers had been corrupted.

　　　Computers used by the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies (SJAC), an association of the nation’s manufacturers of defense-related equipment, also was reported to have been infected for a considerable time by a type of virus that pilfers data, reported Yomiuri Shimbun on October 15. Again, no one noticed.

　　　Japanese corporations are being made fools of. According to research by the Cyber Force Center of the National Police Agency, illegal accesses to computer systems were first detected in November 2009. About the same time, personal computers and servers -€ convenient relay points for the hackers to hide their identity -€ began to be hijacked without being noticed, reported Sankei Shimbun on September 23, 2011.

　　　Through such relay points, the nation’s leading corporations, industrial groups, and members of the parliament had their computers compromised and vital information stolen. Several experts identify the culprit as China;simplified Chinese characters, long standard on the mainland, were left in the wake of the attack against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

China’s Law on State Secrets

　　　Washington has warned Tokyo about cyber-attacks from China, reported Sankei Shimbun on its front page October 25. Subject to numerous cyber-attacks from China over the years, the U.S. grew concerned about a sharp increase in attacks against defense-related government agencies as well as private industries, which prompted it to issue warnings to its allies, including Japan.

　　　In its 2010 Annual Report to Congress on the military and security developments in China, the U.S. Defense Department pointed out the Chinese armed forces have set up a new military intelligence war unit designed to develop sophisticated computer viruses. Because the effort involves private Chinese citizens, university departments, and think tanks, China’s cyber-attacks actually constitute a national scheme with the military and the people collaborating closely.

　　　The true extent of damage done by the cyber-attacks is hard to tell. Even the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission -€ a bipartisan advisory body reporting directly to U.S. Congress -€ admits this in Military and Economic developments involving the People’s Republic of China, 2010. The problems are too vast and extensive, and damage reports tend to be understated. Government organizations and private corporations are reluctant to publicize the actual damage and losses because it reveals their lack of oversight.

　　　The Department of Defense has published records of cyber-attacks from China. It said those attacks increased from 1,415 from 2000 to 71,661 in 2009. It noted that, after the creation in 2009 of the U.S. Cyber Command, the attacks declined to some 60,000 in 201l. The Defense Department reported:“It remains unclear if [these intrusions] were conducted by, or with the endorsement of the [People’s Liberation] Army or other elements of the [People’s Republic of China] government. However, developing capabilities for cyber warfare is consistent with authoritative [People’s Liberation Army] military writings.” The commission concluded:“China’s government, the Chinese Communist Party, and Chinese individuals and organizations continue to hack into American computer systems and networks as well as those of foreign entities and governments.”

　　　The cyber-attacks are a well-orchestrated campaign of the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, as well as many Chinese specialists, all embracing xenophobic hostility and militant aggressiveness toward foreign governments, corporations and industries.

　　　China’s hostility toward the outside world is reflected on its Law on Guarding State Secrets. The fourteenth National People’s Congress closed its four-day session on April 29, 2010 after revising the State Secrets Law to enable them to protect themselves from any illegal actions and lying by the outside world. Beijing wants to make sure the outside world cannot do to China what it has been doing to it in terms of cyber attacks. Following the adoption of the stringent domestic law, Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, vowed to further strengthen legal liability in guarding state secrets.

U.S. Resolve Grows

　　　China’s State Secrets Law dates back to 1951, just two years after the birth of the People’s Republic of China. It was written in an ambiguous way to enable Communist Chinese authorities to control everything they wanted, especially to enable Mao Zedong and his party to oust their political enemies.

　　　The law was first revised in 1988 as Den Xiaoping advocated open door policies. The Communist Party revised and clarified the ill-defined and odious State Secrets Law to lure foreign capital and corporations. The law looked better than before, but still allowed for arbitrary interpretations.

　　　The next revision of the law came in 2010. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission summed up the characteristics of the amendment as follows:

　　　(1) Information technology firms in China must cooperate with public and national security authorities in the investigation of cases involving the disclosure of state secrets. (Author’s note:This means foreign corporations and foreign nations operating in China must hand over all information to the Chinese government.)

　　　(2) Designation of how to label and handle state secrets, including regulations for declassification of state secret information, will continue to be arbitrarily determined by the authorities, and neither the Chinese government nor the Communist party respects the rule of law. Therefore, the latest revision of China’s State Secrets Law is nothing but textual changes to the past law.

　　　I truly value and admire the intellect and resolve of the Americans, which has enabled them to analyze the facts about China’s cyber-warfare preparedness to such an extent as to compile a report that calls a spade a spade.

　　　As I recall, Wu Shizho, head of the Beijing-based China Information Technology Security Certification Center, stressed on the occasion of the law’s revision:“The Chinese government will prohibit all computers and memory units containing state secrets from being connected with the Internet and other public information networks.”

　　　Because China continues stealing information from the rest of the world by hacking, Wu is naturally aware that virtually all vital Chinese information could likewise be stolen the minute Chinese computers and memory units are connected with the Internet.

　　　Chinese hacking poses an urgent threat to both Japan and the United States. One hears an argument that the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) is a U.S. ploy to strip Japan of all its wealth and assets, as well as ruin the Japanese way of life.

　　　Nonsense. The critics’ fears are misplaced. It would be far more logical for Japan to try joining hands with the U.S. over TPP and other pertinent matters in order not be stripped of its secrets by China, among other things.

(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column no. 483 in the November 3, 2011 issue of The Weekly Shincho.)