Announcing the formation of a “Global Initiative on Data Security,” the Chinese Communist Party this week proved that it has not heard of the word “hypocrisy.” Either that, or the CCP has a rather excellent sense of sarcasm.

China has about as much credibility on data security as a Black Mamba’s neurotoxic venom has healthy compatibility with the human nervous system. Addressing the world on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi offered a more optimistic narrative. “By working together,” Wang said, “we can jointly advance global digital governance and build a community with a shared future in the digital world.” That quote speaks to one of the craziest speeches ever delivered by a politician, anywhere, at any time.

One gem of a claim: “the Chinese government has acted in strict compliance with data security principles.”

This is not very serious stuff. Because China hasn’t simply ignored “data security principles,” it has shredded them. The cyber units based out of the Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army are staffed by thousands of spies whose sole job is to get around data security. Targeting the intellectual property and personal information of citizens across the world, these spies try to steal anything of value that can be stolen.

Wang and company deny this truth. Instead, they claim that America is the source of data insecurity. As the foreign minister put it, “Bent on unilateral acts, a certain country keeps making groundless accusations against others in the name of ‘clean’ network and used security as a pretext to prey on enterprises of other countries who have a competitive edge. Such blatant acts of bullying must be opposed and rejected.”

Here we see the CCP assertion that America is preventing 5G market access by Chinese firms not because those firms pose security threats, but rather because the United States seeks an imbalanced competitive environment.

The truth is that the U.S. is restricting these firms because they are not, ultimately, commercial firms. Instead, they are adjuncts of the Chinese intelligence apparatus.

Back to the hypocrisy adventure, when Wang demands that technology firms “not install backdoors in their products and services to illegally obtain user data,” he is describing exactly what Chinese firms like Huawei have done. Consider that Huawei’s software is specifically designed with numerous backdoors to allow CCP spies into the private communications of those who use Huawei systems. As a British intelligence report documented in 2019, Huawei’s software has so many backdoors it’s impossible to verify the company is anything other than a threat actor, or a company with pathetically inadequate security safeguards.

But China isn’t only upset with being called out for its ICT espionage, it’s upset over the restrictions that the Trump administration has introduced in relation to technology sharing.

This anger is understandable.

After all, without access to America technology software, Chinese technology firms quickly become very sub-par imitations of foreign competitors. The best example of this dynamic is the collapsing value of Huawei cell phones alongside new American restrictions on Google and Apple software being used in those phones. Wang says this is all very upsetting. According to the foreign minister, “Protectionist practices undermine the right of global consumers to equally access digital services and will eventually hold back the country’s own development.”

Here we see a window to Xi Jinping’s belief that any technology created abroad should be diverted to China’s primary benefit. “Intellectual” and “property” are two words that Xi does not recognize.

But perhaps the most ridiculous of all of Wang’s comments is his assertion that Beijing works to “oppose using information and communication technology activities to impair other States' critical infrastructure or steal important data.”

I say this is ridiculous, because China invests vast sums of money and human effort to do just what Wang is now claiming it opposes.

Take Beijing’s successful hacking of the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management from 2014 to 2015. That cyber attack gave CCP spies access to the personal data of more than 22 million Americans who have applied for jobs with the U.S. government. China’s targeting of the data was motivated by its generational ambition to recruit vast legions of spies in the United States. The OPM data is valuable in that regard because it includes very personal financial and relationship information. But Beijing’s hack proved a number of things, most notably being that it has absolutely no regard for the basic privacy of others, that Wang is now claiming to stand for personal data privacy is a triumph of absurdity.

As I say, China’s Global Initiative on Data Security is a very thinly-veiled joke. It deserves nothing but disdain, and a touch of laughter.

(Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner foreign policy writer)

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