American Cybersecurity Strategy And Its Influence On Sino-U.S Cybersecurity Relations

In recent years, in order to grab chances in the future cyberspace, countries are trying to strengthen the cybersecurity research. The United States, as the world’s largest information industry country and the cradle of information technology, has powerful resources which dominate the position in cyberspace. America’s cybersecurity strategy evolved from an emphasis on the Clinton administration’s "appropriate information security, defense in depth strategy" to the Bush administration’s focus on "safety first, pre-emptive", to the Obama administration’s "collective security, comprehensive deterrence", which presents the evolution of "defensive" to "offensive". The evolution of U.S. cybersecurity strategy has an important impact on Sino-American relations. In the field of cybersecurity, two countries have a strategic distrust in economy, ideological and military, which cause a lot of trouble between US and China. Therefore, this article attempts to answer the following questions:what are the sources of cybersecurity threats? Compared with traditional threats, what are the characteristics of cyber threats? What are the trends and evolution of U.S. cybersecurity strategy? How to ease the plight of Sino-American cybersecurity and to build Sino-American strategic trust?The first chapter describes that computer viruses, hacker attacks, cybercrime and cyber terrorism are important sources of cybersecurity threats. Compared with traditional security threats, cyber threats have own characteristics:asymmetry, attribution problem, wide range of damage. The asymmetry represents that either actors possibly have strong attack abilities which can cause great damage against leading powers. Easy to attack and hard to defend are the traditional characteristics of cyberspace, the attacker located in a dominant position while the defender with a disadvantage position. Attribution problems refer to the anonymity and privacy, which means it is difficult to identify the source of attacks and its intentions. It is also difficult to determine the real organizers because of being unable to find the cross-border evidence. The damage refers to a wide range of computer networks, while the computer virus can easily spread to other computers, even spread to a nationwide computer system.The second chapter focuses on the background and origin of U.S. cybersecurity strategy. It is noted that the United States highly dependents on information networks. The background of U.S. government to develop the cyberspace security strategy is the vulnerability and sensitivity of cyber space. The U.S. government believes that cybersecurity is one of the most serious challenges to the national security and economic development. As far as economy is concerned, the United States may suffer tens of billions of dollars loss due to cybersecurity issues each year. For example, hackers stole customer data by using vulnerabilities of banks, financial system. Militarily, the U.S. military base in the Middle East has been attacked through the cyberspace.Then the paper describes the U.S. national cybersecurity strategy during the previous administrations. The Clinton administration’s focus on the protection of critical infrastructure networks, which adopt the strategy of multi-level and the defense in depth. With the attention to strengthen the cybersecurity, the Clinton administration also put emphasis on promoting the development of information industry and resources management. The Bush administration strengthened the protection of critical infrastructure again, it shifted its policy from development to security and to take "preemptive strike" strategy to fight against cyber-terrorism. The Obama reiterated that IT is the guarantee to the American economic prosperity, scientific research, military technology, transparent government and a free society. Therefore, the Obama adopted the deterrence strategy policy with the characters that are more obvious aggressive. Above all, the U.S. cybersecurity strategy has changed from former conservative defense-oriented strategy into a more aggressive offensive strategy.The third part of the article describes the current situation of Sino-US cybersecurity relations, it is noted that there are distrust and doubt between the U.S. and China. The conflicts are not only technical issues, but also the more profound economic and political issues which expand the scope of bilateral trade, human rights, diplomacy and other fields. Then, the paper focuses on how to ease Sino-U.S. cybersecurity dilemma and how to achieve Sino-U.S. security governance.Firstly, the U.S. and China should coordinate the cooperation model in the frame of a new type of partnership between big powers and cope with global cybersecurity adjustments. The interdependence in the field of cyberspace meets interests of both countries. Secondly, two important aspects to build Sino-U.S. cybersecurity governance require both countries not only to negotiate consistently based on behavior rules, but also to create a harmonious relationship between the great powers, it must fulfill the great powers’international responsibility in order to resolve international conflicts. Thirdly, in order to establish mutual trust in cyberspace, we must build common interests and abandon zero-sum thinking, respect the values of both political system and abandon the Cold War mentality. It is not a good choice to achieve self-interests at the cost of sacrificing other’s benefit. We should objectively view other’s political and economic development achievements, respect different development paths and jointly safeguard the stability of the international community as well as cyberspace security.