National Security Law Brief

"New Sanctions on Iran" - Original Photo: REX FEATURES Modified Photo: Author

The U.N. Security Council yesterday voted for “tough[,] . . .  smart and precise” sanctions upon Iran’s rogue Government in hopes of stemming their Nuclear weapon ambition. With a 12-2 vote (notably Turkey & Brazil, having a nuclear fuel deal in place with Iran, being the “Nays”) a watered down sanction was passed.

While parts of the sanctions have “voluntarily provisions” they were needed to have China’s support. Victor Gao, director at the China National Association of International Studies,a government think-tank, states that it allows a legal justification for any actions specified in the resolution by each country. China strongly stating that it still supports a “diplomatic approach” as the best approach. One would due well to wonder what China’s interests (read as oil) are in not being tougher on a rogue government with nuclear weapons ambitions.

On the opposite side, reports have already come in criticizing Israel for leaning on China to accept the resolution by outlining not only classified information of what nuclear weapons Iran is developing but also what a preemptive strike upon Iran by Israel would look like to China’s oil supplies.

While some reports criticize this, some are ignoring the public acknowledgment by Israel. It does not deny the message which outlined (1) what Iran’s nuclear ambitions are and (2) what the outcome would be. In doing that Israel reminded China that their rise to world power is not yet complete. It is still crossing that tight rope line to world power status. China still needs to take into account the nations around it and possibly consider not just the repercussions but it’s responsibility in supporting rogue nations. A war between Israel and Iran would seriously disrupt China’s oil consumption with devastating economical results. It is noteworthy to pause here and ask if this “message” is financial leveraging or financial terrorism between states?  Either way it has been happening behind closed doors between nations for years. Israel on the other hand, isn’t hiding anything.

Israel is also free from what the U.S. cannot do. Influence from the U.S. on China is intrinsically hampered by it’s foreign debt to China (much like the London-U.S. debt-selling threat in the Suez Canal or the U.S.-China threat to “stop spending money”). Israel, though, does not have that problem and has the luxury of having its voice “heard” by the rising Asian Lion.

In the end, how strong or weak are these voluntary provisions? It will still need to be seen as the U.N. nations prepare to implement the sanctions. Brazil and Turkey’s nuclear fuel deal with Iran has already been wiped out automatically by the sanctions. But whether the sanctions are in fact “like a used handkerchief for [Iran] . . . and should be thrown into a waste bin . . . [t]hey cannot hurt Iran”  is yet to be seen. (quoting Iranian President  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad)

Read More:

Aljazeera – A New Round of Sanctions

Aljazeera – Iran Threatens To Revise IAEA Ties

CNN – U.N. Votes To Slap New Sanctions On Iran

Aljazeera – Israel Shakes Down China

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Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner plans to hold talks with Chinese Premier Wang Qishan on Thursday. While in India, Geithner declined to give an official agenda for his visit, but hopes abound that a compromise of the valuation of the yuan can be reached. Currently, the rate of the renminbi to the dollar is 6.82, an number which according to analysts, could be 40% below the its actual value. The peg allows China to keep its products artificially low in the world market, but many Chinese policymakers (not to mention American ones) have noted that a rise in the yuan would help consumer purchasing power and control inflation. Wang apparently believes in these arguments, as negotiations between him and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. allowed China’s currency to rise 21% between 2005-2008.

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The Obama administration has decided to postpone issuing a report to Congress that would likely have labeled China a currency manipulator.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement the administration will instead focus on several upcoming U.S.-China meetings to pressure China to change its currency valuation policy.

The postponement of the report avoids an immediate and direct confrontation with China over its manipulation of its currency, the yuan.  China has pegged its value relative to a dollar at a rate that causes it to be as much as 40% undervalued.  This causes Chinese goods to be much cheaper on the global market and many U.S. lawmakers and economists point to it as a major cause of the United States’ trade deficit with China.

U.S. officials have long insisted that China allow its currency to float more freely on global currency exchanges so its value would be more reflective of actual market forces.  China has resisted easing its currency manipulation for years.

In the meantime, Treasury Secretary Geithner says delaying the report and pursuing the upcoming meetings among world financial officials “are the best avenue for advancing U.S. interests at this time.”

Read more at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

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China pledged on Wednesday to enter talks with the U.S. and other allies to create a proposal for sanctioning Iran for its uranium enrichment program. The U.S. had, in the past few days, softened its hardline stance slightly in order to persuade China and Russia to enter into the discussion. In an effort to secure cooperation, the U.S. removed a provision proposing sanctions aimed at choking off Tehran’s access to international banking services and capital markets and closing international airspace and waters to Iran’s national air cargo and shipping lines, among other changes. China’s recent cooperation represents an encouraging step forward, since for months it had refused to participate in the discussion and sent only low-level diplomats to the discussions.

Read more at the WSJ and the WP.

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While the United States has announced this year that it is requesting from Congressional appropriators the largest Defense budget in history and Defense officials are publicly claiming that no slowdown is in sight (despite the forecast of a looming budget crisis), China announced today its lowest percentage increase over prior year defense spending since 1989.  A released budget report indicated that the Chinese government has appropriated $77.9B for the military this year, which represented an increase of about $5.4B (7.5%) over last year.  The irony here is palpable: in a year where Department of Defense officials seem to be taking pains to assure Congress that the rising tide of defense spending will not stop in the near future, the primary international threat used to justify such spending has indicated a slowdown of its own.

The Congressional Defense committees will take up the $708.2B FY 2011 DOD budget proposal later this summer.

To read more, please go to the New York Times.

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Members of the Obama Administration are reportedly considering ending a ban on assisting an elite unit of the Indonesian military. The unit, known as Kopassus (short for Indonesian Komando Pasukan Khusus), has been denied American military assistance for 12 years due to criminal convictions of beatings and killings associated with their members. The Bush administration, due to increased cooperation between the two countries on Islamic terrorism, attempted to remove the ban in 2008, but were prevented by the State Department. However, the rise of Chinese influence in Southeast Asia has President Obama reaching out in an effort to counter China’s rise.

Unnamed officials at the Indonesian Embassy predict that cooperation will resume. The ban was pursuant to the Leahy Law, passed in 1997, that prevented military assistance to governments with a record of human rights abuses unless those governments were attempting to correct the past abuses. While geo-strategic think tanks generally approve of the plan as a measure to a new Asian defense strategy, human rights groups feel that Indonesia has not prosecuted former Kopassus members enough.

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On the eve of negotiations between Google and the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on internet censorship, China has issued a fresh set of increased restrictions on internet use.  The new regulations would require all websites operators to provide picture ID and to meet with government regulators prior to operating a website.

In mid-December, Google detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on their Gmail system.  In response to this attack, Google shared details of this hacking attempt with the world and declared they were reviewing their operations in China–even pulling out completely.  China continues to deny their involvement in this cyber-attack, claiming the accusation is “groundless,” contrary to the New York Times report here.  This latest restriction on internet openness only days before Google attempts to reengage China on this exact issue demonstrates China’s resolve in maintaining information censorship.  For more on Google in China, visit here.

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After NSA investigators traced recent cyber-attacks on Google’s servers to specific IP address at Chinese school, school and government officials have officially denied accusations.  Dismissing the report as irresponsible, a spokesperson from Shanghai Jiaotong University demanded to see evidence that such an attack could have originated from school computers, dismissing the IP information as inconclusive considering modern technology.   The spokesperson further denied any connection between the school and China’s army.  The school is a vocational college, teaching students skills in welding, mechanics, and cooking.

The back and forth between the United States and China over the attacks on Google highlight a central problem in prosecuting perpetrators of cyber-attacks, the problem of attribution.  The difficulty in pinning down the exact source of an attack is increasingly difficult in a world where hackers can disguise their location, and even a successful trace may reveal little usable evidence of the identity of the attacker.  Without more concrete methods of cyber-attribution, it is unclear how the United States and China will move past the blame-denial game towards a viable solution.

Read more at: Washington Post, China Daily.

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The Financial Times has reported that US investigators are narrowing their search for the author of malicious code which recently attacked a number of US companies, most notably Google. Reports describe the author of the code as a Chinese freelance security consultant in his 30′s who actually posted portions of the code on the web. The code exploited a weakness in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Browser and was used to mine the email accounts of noted Chinese Human Rights Activists. Microsoft has since released a patch for Internet Explorer in response to these attacks.

Reports also suggest that Chinese officials had access to the source code of the attacks. Quotes from unnamed Chinese government researches have surfaced and demonstrate that the government may have known of the codes development and motivations. Additionally, two Chinese universities have been linked to the attack- Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang School- however, both schools deny any knowledge and involvement. Read more here.

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This week signaled a breakthrough in the National Security Agency’s investigation of the online attacks on Google and other servers.  The attacks have been traced to two schools in China, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School.  Jiaotong has one of the top computer science programs in China and rivals elite universities in the United States.  Lanxiang is a large vocational school with ties to the Chinese military and Google’s main competitor in China, Baidu.

This new information has raised questions of whether the Chinese government is responsible for the attacks or if the hackers are working independently.  Some analysts believe this is just another example of 21^st century “criminal industrial espionage”—where independent hackers aim to steal valuable information.  While others, such as James C. Mulvenon from the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington, D.C., point out that China employs a decentralized system of online espionage by often employing the talents of independent “patriotic hackers.”

To read more, read The New York Times.

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