"Is There a Way For China and The West to Cooperate in Cyberspace?"

" Is There a Way For China and The West to Cooperate in Cyberspace? \r\n \r\n\r\nCyberspace, like the high seas or space before it, has become another\u00a0 contested arena \u00a0where nation-states jostle for \u00a0influence , security and to further their\u00a0 strategic interests . Understandably, the relationship between the West and China has been severly strained by disagreements over issues including internet governance, allegations of\u00a0 espionage \u00a0and even the\u00a0 definition of cybercrime\u00a0 itself.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nIt is important to acknowledge these differences -\u00a0 tensions are very real \u00a0- but also to understand that\u00a0 strategic competition , a\u00a0 changing world order \u00a0and the ' great game' \u00a0is not new. The past shows even in the most fraught circumstances there can be a way forward for great powers and rivals to cooperate in the most contentious policy areas. Now,\u00a0 combating an unfolding financial cybercrime \u00a0might need to become another example.\r\n \r\n A cybercrime crisis \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nDuring the Cold War, cooperation on nuclear disarmament\u00a0 and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) \u00a0are, perhaps, the most famous examples of where common ground was struck. However, transnational crime often shows a much clearer pathway. The US and Cuba, despite decades of hostility,\u00a0 cooperated to tackle hijackings and air piracy , and the USSR and the West did have success\u00a0 combating drug trafficking , despite deep ideological divides. Working through Interpol and bilateral channels, they shared intelligence to\u00a0 disrupt trafficking networks \u00a0and attempt to curb heroin flows.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nToday, the overlooked trans-national crime partnership between the West and China (involving the collaboration on countering-narcotic production from the\u00a0 Golden Triangle and Mekong Delta of SouthEast Asia ) could again offer a precedent for today\u2019s policy-makers. Emanating from the 1972 historic\u00a0 Nixon-Mao Summit , ebbs and flows of cooperation were managed even in the most\u00a0 strategically charged \u00a0times in the following\u00a0 decades . Successes,\u00a0 most notably in the late 1990s and early 2000s, \u00a0as well as high-profile\u00a0 failures \u00a0in the intervening years, emanated from a willingness to try to find and constructively engage on\u00a0 soft security issues \u00a0where there were shared principles and outcomes at stake.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nNow, across Southeast Asia, and especially in the same \u00a0Mekong Delta \u00a0of Cambodia, Laos and\u00a0 Burma , highly effective, technically proficient cybercrime factories have morphed from those historic organized crime groups and drug syndicates. These financial cybercrime gangs have exploded in growth following the COVID-19 pandemic and, in just five years, are now set to cost\u00a0 $3 trillion dollars in accumulated illegal capital\u00a0 to the global economy - equivalent to the entire GDP of France.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n Image:\u00a0World Economic Forum Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2025 \r\n \r\n\r\nLast year, the United Nations and Interpol declared that this region was descending into a\u00a0 \u2018cybercrime crisis\u2019 \u00a0 that required urgent global cooperation to tackle. Not least because of the human misery of\u00a0 hundreds of thousands \u00a0of\u00a0 'cyber slaves' \u00a0being trafficked into these regions. This included\u00a0 high-profile Chinese actor, Wang Xing , who was forcibly abducted from a street in Thailand while on holiday.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nThese are not just simple scams; targeting is on an \u2018 unprecedented scale\u2019 . Even more concerning, this ecosystem is already hardening and becoming more sophisticated; developing and deploying a\u00a0 full suite of malicious cyber tools, derived from a booming underground cyber marketplace .\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nThe crime syndicates are trafficking Chinese and\u00a0 English speaker s to work in these cybercrime factories to maximize the potential available global victims.\u00a0 China \u00a0is heavily targeted due to its proximity and its\u00a0 highly integrated mobile chat, apps and digital payment infrastructure . Western consumers and businesses are also directly targeted with losses to the\u00a0 UK \u00a0and the US now estimated in the\u00a0 tens of billions . It is a record explosion of cybercrime that exploits Western and Chinese technology infrastructures and drives major in-country\u00a0 money laundering networks. \r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nMore strategically, the West and China have learnt painful lessons when online fraud gangs have been able to harden over time into deeply sophisticated, intractable underground cyber economies.\r\n \r\n A long view has to be taken \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nFollowing the fall-out of the collapse of the Soviet Union,\u00a0 the Russian-speaking pioneers \u00a0of the online credit card fraud and cybercrime marketplaces of the late 1990s and 2000s eventually gave way to the much more\u00a0 sophisticated banking , extortion and \u00a0ransomware gangs \u00a0of the 2020s. This same ecosystem is now responsible for the most sophisticated financially motivated cyber attacks globally; which\u00a0 governments declare as national emergencies . The UK, for example,\u00a0 rates them as a tier-one security threat . Ultimately those tools and tactics have been copied and transposed globally and are now driving a\u00a0 record increase in Chinese reports of ransomware attacks .\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n 'Soft' security versus 'hard' security cooperation \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nCooperation on transnational crime historically has always been treated of secondary importance by governments to strategic issues, like trade and\u00a0 national security . Recognizing that any \u00a0cooperation can and\u00a0 will be \u00a0impacted \u00a0by these concerns is fundamental, but that doesn\u2019t mean collective cooperation cannot or should not take place. China and the West can try to help with this cyber crisis in three primary ways:\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n 1. Focused capacity building \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nIt is clear some Southeast Asian\u00a0 countries \u00a0urgently need more expertise, stronger governance and enforcement strategies to stop this malicious activity from spreading even further. China and the West,\u00a0 bilaterally , or collectively through multilateral vehicles like the\u00a0 ASEAN Cyber Capacity Programme , can do more to promote regional activity.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nSpecifically with more direct funding, sharing domain expertise and leaning into accelerating agreements on issues like the sharing of \u00a0electronic evidence . Not least, more dedicated\u00a0 European , American and\u00a0 Chinese \u00a0police experts are sorely needed to\u00a0 train \u00a0blockchain analysts, programmers and cybersecurity investigators to aid regional law enforcement forces in tracking and disrupting the gangs.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n 2. Law enforcement cooperation \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nCybercriminal groups exploit ineffective enforcement systems and the West and\u00a0 China \u00a0can work to try and close those gaps. While there has been progress, there is clearly more opportunity for intelligence sharing and coordination. As in the 1980s and 1990s, when trust was also low, multilateral agencies, especially\u00a0 Interpol \u00a0or other\u00a0 regional task forces \u00a0and \u00a0joint operating models , can be highly effective in sharing intelligence and coordinating operations when bilateral engagements are politically fraught.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n 3. Multistakeholder mitigation \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nDirect law enforcement action ultimately has limitations in cyberspace. Effective action against cybercrime is defined by public-private partnerships that draw upon the expertise, technology and capabilities of the \u00a0private sector . Mitigation at this scale can only be possible if the West and China directly bring in a wider group of invested\u00a0 technology companies \u00a0and other\u00a0 civil society groups \u00a0who can act in\u00a0 global coalitions \u00a0with regional partners to disrupt human trafficking, as well as financial crime operations.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n\r\nAt times of\u00a0 heightened tension \u00a0finding common ground is of vital importance. History shows that even in the most fraught geopolitical environments, pragmatic, issue-specific cooperation can be found to help build trust and foster dialogue that can ultimately lead to greater stability between powers. Both China and the West can ill afford yet another cyber safe haven to emerge that can further threaten global prosperity,\u00a0 propagate harm \u00a0and become another thorn in the side of peace and stability.\r\n\r\n \r\n \r\n "

"Is There a Way For China and The West to Cooperate in Cyberspace?"

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