China ran a multi-million dollar foreign influence operation targeting the Obama administration, hoping to bend Washington towards signing a free trade agreement, allowing Huawei to build the U.S' 5G infrastructure, and to keep quiet on Taiwan and Hong Kong. When they first came across it, the FBI et al dismissed it because they couldn't…
China ran a multi-million dollar foreign influence operation targeting the Obama administration, hoping to bend Washington towards signing a free trade agreement, allowing Huawei to build the U.S' 5G infrastructure, and to keep quiet on Taiwan and Hong Kong. When they first came across it, the FBI et al dismissed it because they couldn't believe that a state-sanctioned campaign could be so sloppy and directionless.
The reality is that a lot of foreign meddling is sloppy as all hell. But it's a thing we have to resist based on its intent and tactics, not on its actual results.
At least corporations have the common decency to run their democratic manipulation out in the open, so we can address it publicly.
I think that fiction has drastically raised people's expectations of what spies can do. If you want to read a painful, eye-rolling account of spy projects that never achieved much, try Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes" about the CIA.
The corporations, alas, have been remarkably effective. I'm just finished Nikiforuk's Tyee article on the "failed petrostate" of Alberta, that was lobbied out of tens of billions in royalties...
China ran a multi-million dollar foreign influence operation targeting the Obama administration, hoping to bend Washington towards signing a free trade agreement, allowing Huawei to build the U.S' 5G infrastructure, and to keep quiet on Taiwan and Hong Kong. When they first came across it, the FBI et al dismissed it because they couldn't believe that a state-sanctioned campaign could be so sloppy and directionless.
The reality is that a lot of foreign meddling is sloppy as all hell. But it's a thing we have to resist based on its intent and tactics, not on its actual results.
At least corporations have the common decency to run their democratic manipulation out in the open, so we can address it publicly.
I think that fiction has drastically raised people's expectations of what spies can do. If you want to read a painful, eye-rolling account of spy projects that never achieved much, try Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes" about the CIA.
The corporations, alas, have been remarkably effective. I'm just finished Nikiforuk's Tyee article on the "failed petrostate" of Alberta, that was lobbied out of tens of billions in royalties...