The United States Department of Defense released its annual assessment report on Chinese military and security on Wednesday, December 18th, 2024. The report highlighted China’s attempts to influence American military decision-making and disrupt U.S. military operations through espionage activities.
According to congressional mandates, the Department of Defense issues an annual report on Chinese military capabilities. The report noted that China seeks to disrupt U.S. decision-making and military operations by employing traditional and cyber espionage activities, ranging from denial of service attacks to physical destruction of critical infrastructure.
Compared to a decade ago, the report stated that Beijing’s activities in cyberspace present fundamentally different, more complex, and urgent challenges to U.S. national security. The Department of Defense emphasized that Beijing’s development, interception, and acquisition of information and advanced technology pose a continuous and complex espionage and attack threat to U.S. military and critical infrastructure systems.
Currently, U.S. authorities have detected Chinese network hackers engaging in attacks against American telecommunications companies, hosting service providers, and software developers.
The report highlighted that the primary targets of Chinese attacks in the U.S. are proprietary commercial and military technology companies, as well as research institutions related to defense, energy, and other sectors.
Since 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed multiple criminal cases related to Chinese espionage activities against American military interests involving Chinese citizens, legal permanent residents from China, and U.S. citizens (particularly U.S. military personnel).
According to the inventory of the U.S. Department of Justice, these espionage activities involved the export of controlled items to China and economic espionage activities on behalf of Beijing. The cases included sensitive dual-use or military-grade equipment such as aviation technology, anti-radiation power amplifiers, monitoring circuits, anti-radiation integrated circuits, single-chip microwave integrated circuits, accelerometers, gyroscopes, Navy and Marine Corps technology, signal decoders, synthetic foam proprietary information, space communication, military communication jamming equipment, and dynamic random-access memory.
From 2023 to early 2024, cases prosecuted by the Department of Justice included:
In August 2023, two U.S. military personnel were arrested for transmitting sensitive military information to Beijing, involving details about sensitive weapons, naval ship propulsion, and seawater desalination systems.
In October 2023, a former U.S. military member was arrested for attempting to provide defense information to a Chinese security agency, involving equipment that could access the U.S. secure military computer network.
In March 2024, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst was arrested for transmitting sensitive documents about U.S. military HH-60W helicopters, F-22A “Raptor” fighters, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) tactical, technology, and procedural manuals to China.
The analyst provided information on U.S. military exercises, research on major countries including China, hypersonic equipment, and potential U.S. plans during a crisis in Taiwan.
In March 2024, a Chinese citizen residing in California and working for Google was arrested for stealing and transferring business secrets related to artificial intelligence and providing them to a Chinese company in the AI industry.