The recent outbreak of cyber warfare across the Taiwan Strait underscores the importance that both sides of the Taiwan Strait have placed on efforts to develop their information warfare and information dominance capabilities
					China and Taiwan: information warfare
					by Damon Bristow, Head of the Asia Programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in London In the summer of 1999, a new kind of war erupted across the Taiwan Strait. The outbreak of hostilities came on the back of President Lee Teng-hui’s comments on 9 June that ties between China and Taiwan should be characterised as special state-to-state relations. Beijing, that argues that the island is a renegade province and refuses to forswear the use of force to bring about reunification, reacted in typically harsh fashion, describing Lee at one point as a demented test-tube baby. That, in turn, prompted fears that China would repeat its antics of early 1996 when, in the run-up to Taiwan’s presidential elections, it conducted a series of military exercises and lobbed missiles into the Taiwan Strait. So far this has not happened; Beijing has been fairly restrained in its response. Instead, this 50-year-old conflict has entered the information age, with computer hackers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait busily spreading computer viruses and breaking into each other’s websites. Who actually started this war without smoke is at this point unclear. Taipei has pointed the finger at China, claiming that the conflict started in earnest on 8 August when a Chinese hacker allegedly broke into the website of Taiwan’s inspector general. He left a message saying: “Only one China exists and only one China is needed,” and “the Taiwanese government headed by Lee Teng-hui can’t deny it”. Since then, according to Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, Chinese hackers reportedly have broken into Taiwanese computer networks an impressive 165 times. Other targets have included the investigation bureau of Taiwan’s Justice Ministry, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the National Assembly. Hackers also invaded the website of the American Institute in Taipei, the United States’ unofficial embassy in the country, and crashed its server by bombarding it with 45,000 e-mails at one time. Taiwan’s hackers responded in kind. A wag believed to be from one of the island’s universities changed the text of China’s State Tax Authority website to read: “China should stop playing with fire. We will declare independence should you attack us”. Another replaced the Ministry of Railways’ site with the text of Taiwan’s national anthem and an icon that played the anthem when clicked. Furthermore, threats were made that on 1 October – China’s National Day – all web sites using simplified Chinese characters would be infected with viruses. Thus far, however, Beijing has refused to admit the number of strikes that have taken place against its websites and other computer facilities. Cyber warfare The recent outbreak of cyber warfare across the Taiwan Strait, apart from making great newspaper copy, underscores the importance that both sides of the Taiwan Strait have placed on efforts to develop their information warfare and information dominance capabilities. This is exemplified by Beijing according top priority to the modernisation of its information capabilities, particularly since the end of the Gulf War in 1991, and more recently by events in Kosovo. Newspapers such as the Jeifangjun Bao – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) daily – have speculated liberally on the subject, arguing that China should develop its own infowar theories, study the Gulf War, and strive to develop selected technologies. However, the extent to which all this hype actually corresponds to reality is difficult to gauge. According to one recent US report, Beijing has focused its efforts on improving military command-and- control communications, computer (C4I) systems and overall communications technology. These improvements have gone hand in hand with other efforts to develop more sexy, asymmetric capabilities such as conventional ballistic missiles, anti-satellite systems and a computer warfare capability. In short, China is trying to put into place all the capabilities necessary to destroy or at least erode other countries’ information infrastructures. However, Beijing’s efforts to develop the more sophisticated elements of an information warfare programme are still in the early stages of development. Nevertheless the US government believes that China has paid considerable attention to researching methods of inserting computer viruses into military command-and-control nodes. At the same time efforts are being made to develop countermeasures to prevent enemy attacks on mainland computers. Furthermore, the US State Department reckons that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has acquired adequate hardware and software from abroad and has made some progress with its home-grown capabilities. Playing catch-up On the planning and operational side, the PRC actively started to consider the advantage of information warfare plans way back in 1985. Ten years later, General Liu Huaquing, a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), stated: “Information warfare and electronic warfare are of key importance and efforts must be made to catch up with and overtake our rivals”. And two years after that, rumour has it that the PLA conducted exercises in the Beijing, Nanjing and Lanzhou military regions, in which it attempted to interrupt, paralyse, or destroy enemy broadcasting and military communications systems by using computer viruses. Taiwan has not sat by idly in the face of the mainland threat; indeed, because of its relative technological sophistication, the island is very well placed to develop its overall information warfare capability. Interestingly, Taiwan has something of a pedigree when it comes to computer warfare. Rumour has it that Taiwanese companies and individuals have been behind the development of a number of viruses in recent years. One, known as Bloody of 6/4, protesting events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, was discovered in the Republic of China (ROC) in 1990. A Taiwanese company also was believed to have been behind the creation and dissemination of the daunting Michelangelo virus. Discovered in 1992, the fear was that it would erase all IBM PC hard disks on 6 March, the painter’s birthday. And in April 1998 the Chernobyl virus, that was thought to have been written by a Taiwanese engineering student, damaged 360,000 computers in China, causing $120m-worth of damage. Taiwanese computer companies also have been at the forefront of anti-virus technology. In terms of infowar planning, Taiwan has been no slouch. Just recently, for example, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) reportedly announced that the island should step up research into China’s capabilities and try to develop countermeasures. And in August, Tang Fei, Taiwan’s Defence Minister, announced that, as part of its wider plans to acquire long-range early warning radar systems and satellites, the government would establish an information warfare unit by sometime this year, and also a committee on information warfare strategy. For their part, the Taiwanese armed forces, whose websites are already well protected and have proved impregnable to attacks by hackers, have stepped up their infowar training. According to MND officials, the military has also started erecting a string of firewalls to prevent domestic websites from coming under attack. And yet, for all this talk of fighting high-tech battles across the strait, the fact remains that the recent internet spat between China and Taiwan was probably between lone hackers, rather than highly trained information warfare warriors working from bunkers in Beijing and Taipei. However, the ease with which these individuals broke into computer systems and wreaked havoc is certain to have steadied the resolve and strengthened the hands of those in both countries who are pushing for the development of a better information warfare capability. ©
		With its relative technological sophistication, Taiwan is very well placed to develop an overall information warfare capability
	"The recent outbreak of cyber warfare across the Taiwan Strait, apart from making great newspaper copy, underscores the importance that both sides of the Taiwan Strait have placed on efforts to develop information warfare"