Reuters-Five Eyes intelligence chiefs warn on Chinas theft of intellectual property
October 18, 2023 3 min 634 words
这篇报道涉及五眼情报联盟国家指责中国侵犯知识产权并利用人工智能进行黑客和间谍活动。这是一项罕见的联合声明，由美国、英国、加拿大、澳大利亚和新西兰的情报官员发布。他们在美国硅谷的私营企业会议后发表了这些言论。 这个联合呼吁强调了中国在多个领域窃取机密，从量子技术和机器人技术到生物技术和人工智能。指控的内容包括网络侵入、人员情报活动以及看似无害的企业投资和交易。FBI局长克里斯托弗·雷表示，中国对创新构成了前所未有的威胁。 中国政府则坚称致力于知识产权保护，拒绝了这些指控。但五眼联盟成员首次公开联合指责中国的知识产权侵犯行为。澳大利亚情报机构的局长迈克·伯吉斯表示，中国的意图是为了本国的利益，这是可以理解的，但行为已经远远超越了传统的间谍活动。 五眼联盟此前在五月警告称，中国正在进行一场广泛的间谍活动，针对关键基础设施和其他各个领域。中国政府则将这些指控视为“集体的虚假信息宣传”。 克里斯托弗·雷表示，中国的黑客计划比所有其他主要国家加起来都要大，结合了北京政府的实际间谍活动以及从私营企业和研究机构窃取商业机密，使中国拥有巨大的力量。官员们呼吁私营企业和学术界协助应对这些威胁，其中最主要的是人工智能工具。 这一报道突显了国际社会对中国在知识产权领域的担忧，以及其与五眼联盟国家之间的紧张关系。中国必须采取措施来建立信任，以解决这些问题，这有助于推动全球创新和国际关系的稳定。
The Five Eyes countries' intelligence chiefs came together on Tuesday to accuse China of intellectual property theft and using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying against the nations, in a rare joint statement by the allies.
The officials from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - known as the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network - made the comments following meetings with private companies in the U.S. innovation hub Silicon Valley.
U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the "unprecedented" joint call was meant to confront the "unprecedented threat" China poses to innovation across the world.
From quantum technology and robotics to biotechnology and artificial intelligence, China was stealing secrets in various sectors, the officials said.
"China has long targeted businesses with a web of techniques all at once: cyber intrusions, human intelligence operations, seemingly innocuous corporate investments and transactions," Wray said. "Every strand of that web had become more brazen, and more dangerous."
In response, Chinese government spokesman Liu Pengyu said the country was committed to intellectual property protection.
"We firmly oppose to the groundless allegations and smears towards China and hope the relevant parties can view China’s development objectively and fairly," the spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters.
The U.S. has long accused China of intellectual property theft and the issue has been a key sore point in U.S.-China relations. But this is the first time the Five Eyes members have joined publicly to call out China on it.
"The Chinese government is engaged in the most sustained scaled and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history," said Mike Burgess, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation's director-general.
While China's intention to innovate for its own national interest was "fine and entirely appropriate", Burgess said "the behaviour we're talking about here goes well beyond traditional espionage."
Last month, his department busted a Chinese plot to infiltrate a prestigious Australian research institution that involved planting an academic there to steal secrets, he said.
"This sort of thing is happening every day in Australia, as it is in the countries here," Burgess said.
The Five Eyes statement follows the group's warning in May of a widespread Chinese spy operation it said was targeting critical infrastructure and various other sectors.
The Chinese government dismissed those allegations as a "collective disinformation campaign."
Wray said China had "a bigger hacking program than that of every other major nation combined" that together with Beijing's physical spies and stealing of trade secrets from private businesses and research institutions gave the country enormous power.
"Part of what makes it so challenging is all of those tools deployed in tandem, at a scale the likes of which we've never seen," Wray said.
The officials called for private industry and academia to help in countering those threats, chief among which they said were artificial intelligence tools.
"We worry about AI as an amplifier for all sorts of misconduct," Wray said, accusing China of stealing more personal and corporate data than any other nation by orders of magnitude.
"If you think about what AI can do to help leverage that data to take what's already the largest hacking program in the world by a country mile, and make it that much more effective - that's what we're worried about," he said.