Chinese Hackers Branded as "Government Controlled Hacker Group" by the U.S.

Chinese Hackers Branded as "Government Controlled Hacker Group" by the U.S.

At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, U.S.-China relations were rife with deep distrust behind the scenes of economic cooperation. The Taiwan Strait Crisis and the tension over Taiwan's presidential election, combined with the frequent cyber attacks that occurred in the early days of the Internet, led the U.S. to be highly wary of digital acts from China as a political threat. After the EP3 collision in 2001, Chinese youths made anti-American calls on the Internet and retaliatory hacking spread, which appeared to the U.S. side as a controlled operational act. Against the backdrop of these developments, the Red China Red Cross was treated as a sub-national organization and branded as a government-led cyberwarfare unit.

The reality, however, was very different. Red China was not a specialized unit under the command of the Chinese government, but rather a loose community that emerged spontaneously from Internet cafes and university terminal rooms. The members' ideologies were diverse, and the reasons for their actions ranged from patriotism to mere technological excitement, and there was no unified chain of command. There was no unified chain of command. The nationalism of the state and the impulses of the young people resonated only reflexively, and complete control was practically impossible.

As many researchers have pointed out, the image of the Hongkai as the shadow of the state as perceived by the United States was a political frame born out of the context of international politics of the U.S.-China conflict, and was distant from the real image of the Hongkai. Ironically, however, in the process of expanding this misunderstanding, the Chinese government institutionalized cyber warfare capabilities in earnest, and the spontaneous culture of Benkaku gradually disappeared. It was the combination of U.S. caution, domestic changes, and distrust between the two countries that created the narrative of Hongya as a government-controlled hacker group.