Opinion Weathering Snowden

It may be too early to say whether China or Russia will bear the brunt of America’s ire. But at this stage,Washington has plenty to be upset about with China. Less than three weeks ago,President Barack Obama and Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping had an informal relationship-building summit in California,an event that was supposed to ease tensions between the two countries. Unfortunately,with the intrusion of the Snowden Affair,US-China relations faced an unexpected test.

From the moment Snowden landed in Hong Kong,it was clear that China was going to benefit from his presence and the political embarrassment from his revelations about America’s global cyber eavesdropping programme. Now that Snowden is no longer in the Chinese territory,it is worth taking a step back and analysing what China has got from this incident.

Of the most immediate interest to American authorities is the treasure trove of classified materials Snowden brought to Hong Kong — four laptop computers and a USB drive. There are conflicting reports in the press regarding whether Chinese intelligence agents were able to gain access to Snowden and his computer. Some claim that Chinese intelligence services have drained the hard drives on his computers. Others insist that Snowden was with his Hong Kong protectors all the time and had never been approached by Chinese intelligence agents. It is impossible to establish the truth at this point. Probably Snowden himself does not know. Chinese agents could have got into his room and copied his hard drive while he was asleep. It is unlikely that the Chinese would gladly let Snowden leave without having laid their hands on the secrets he brought with him.

While the classified computer data harvested from Snowden might be of tremendous intelligence value,the Snowden affair has given China a huge windfall in political terms. Until Snowden leaked the American National Security Agency’s PRISM cyber espionage programme,China had been identified as the worst offender in conducting cyber attacks. Now the table has been turned on the US.

Snowden’s claims about the National Security Agency’s cyber attacks on China’s mobile networks and universities have inflamed Chinese public opinion (one reason why Beijing would have never considered allowing Hong Kong to comply with Washington’s demand on Snowden’s arrest promptly). The United States government has lost its moral high ground in confronting the cyber attacks originating from China. In the near future,Washington will find it hard to raise this painful subject with Beijing in bilateral meetings. One can imagine that each time American officials try to broach the subject with a list of attacks blamed on the Chinese military,their Chinese counterparts would counter it by producing their own list of attacks attributed to the NSA and the CIA.

But even if China may gain tactically from the Snowden affair,the benefits are likely to be modest and temporary. The NSA and the CIA will almost certainly take immediate measures to minimise the damage done to the security and reliability of their surveillance systems caused by the Snowden affair,thus reducing the value of the information or secrets gained by the Chinese intelligence services. The political damage done to America’s image and moral authority will dissipate in months. China may be able to skirt the issue of cyber espionage in its diplomatic discussions with the US for now,but if Chinese cyber espionage directed against civilian American companies continues to dominate news headlines,Beijing will have no choice but to sit down with Washington and prevent this issue from further undermining the broader bilateral relationship.

So if we have to judge whether the Sino-American relationship has weathered the Snowden affair unscathed,the verdict will have to be that this is a clear setback for both Washington and Beijing. This incident again proves that there is no strategic trust between the two great powers. The leaked information exposes their fierce competition in cyber space. However,the damage done to US-China relations by the Snowden affair is likely to be limited. Washington might take some minor retaliatory actions against Beijing just to show its anger. But the Snowden storm will quickly pass. Policy-makers in Beijing and Washington are mature enough to understand that cyber espionage is a game they have to play — and do their best to avoid getting caught red-handed.

The writer is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College,US,and non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US

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