Biden Admin Knew Last Year, China Could Shut Down Our Infrastructure and Has Done Nothing
The Biden administration knew how bad it was and did nothing.
Chinese hackers had gained the ability to shut down dozens of U.S. ports, power grids and other infrastructure targets at will, Jake Sullivan told telecommunications and technology executives at a secret meeting at the White House in the fall of 2023, according to people familiar with it. The attack could threaten lives, and the government needed the companies’ help to root out the intruders.
What no one at the briefing knew, including Sullivan: China’s hackers were already working their way deep inside U.S. telecom networks, too.
Did they know? Did they not know?
The bottom line is they did nothing useful. The WSJ story pretends this is a new development, but China has a long history of catastrophic hacks, and the situation has been allowed to get and worse.
The telecom hacks completely compromised our communications, still hasn’t been resolved and may never be.
Some national security officials involved in the investigation said they believe the telecom hack is so severe, and the networks so compromised, that the U.S. may never be able to say with certainty that the Chinese hackers have been fully rooted out.
Certainly not if we keep letting it happen with no consequences.
Several senior lawmakers and U.S. officials have switched from making traditional cellphone calls and texts to using encrypted apps such as Signal, for fear that China may be listening in. Federal law-enforcement officials have told state and local law enforcement to do the same. (Federal agents already use their own encrypted systems for classified work.)
So we’ve basically surrendered. But what happens if China launches a serious attack on our infrastructure?
The infrastructure hacks also alarmed officials. In April, during a five-hour session with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China’s attacks on physical infrastructure were concerning, dangerous and escalatory, people familiar with the encounter said.
Flanked by aides at a long table with pots of tea and water, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi shrugged and called the allegations a phantom concocted by the U.S. to increase support for military spending.
In another meeting later that week, other U.S. officials presented evidence linking the intrusions to China-based IP addresses. The Chinese officials said they would look at it and get back to the Americans, but never substantively did, U.S. officials familiar with the interactions said.
This is pathetic. China knows what it’s doing and it’s laughing at us while we plead with it. The situation needs to fundamentally change because we’ve been invaded and our government is asking the invaders to stop.
