Two senior military strategists of China’s Academy of Military Sciences Ye Zheng and Zhao Baoxian have accused the US of triggering a global ‘Internet war’ and said that China must strengthen its cyber defence and prepare strategies to win the battle of public opinion in the Web world.
The military officials wrote in the China Youth Daily that cyber warfare has become important for a nation to survive.
Ye and Zhao said, "Just as nuclear warfare was the strategic war of the industrial era, cyberwarfare has become the strategic war of the information era, a form of battle that is massively destructive and concerns the life and death of nations."
Ye and Zhao said that the real cyber threat that China faced was not about security breaches of public or private businesses, but psychological operations that are designed to shift public opinion against governments.
The authors referred to the "domino effect" of the Jasmine revolution that were triggered by Facebook and Twitter users and which eventually pulled down governments in the Middle East and north Africa.
"Cyberwarfare is an entirely new mode of battle that is invisible and silent, and it is active not only in wars and conflicts, but also flares in the everyday political, economic, military, cultural and scientific activities," the article said.
It accused the US of launching a "Internet war" to bring down several governments.
"Of late, an Internet tornado has swept across the world … massively impacting and shocking the globe. Behind all this lies the shadow of America," said the article.
"Faced with this warmup for an Internet war, every nation and military can’t be passive but is making preparations to fight the Internet war," it said.
Last week, after the UK and the US admitted that they were building cyber defences, China also acknowledged that it has established a cyberwarfare unit called as the "cyber blue team".
China’s defence ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng has reportedly said, "Cyber-attacks have become an international problem affecting both civilian and military areas."
"China is relatively weak in cyber security and has often been targeted. This temporary programme is aimed at improving our defences against such attacks," Yansheng added.
