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Cyber Wars: Confronting China's Digital Threat · China Considered

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[MUSIC]
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Welcome to China Considered, a podcast that brings fresh
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insights and informed discussion to one of the most consequential issues of our time,
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how China is changing and changing the world.
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I'm Liz Economy Hargrove, Senior Fellow and co director of the U.S China and
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the World Program at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
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Today I have with me Dr Adam Segal.
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He's a China expert who also directs the Digital and
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Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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He served in the Biden Administration State Department,
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where he authored the administration's international Cyber Strategy, and
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he's a world renowned expert on both China and digital policy.
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It's great to have you with us today, Adam.
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>> Adam Segal: Thanks for having me on, Liz.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: So let's start with what's going on right now with Deep Seek.
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It's captured everybody's attention, caused the US stock market,
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Nvidia stock, to plummet.
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Explain to us why Deep Seq is so important.
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Do we need to be as worried as everybody seems to be?
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What is this all about?
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, Deep Seq's breakthrough poses kind of three big
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questions about how we're approaching AI in China.
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So the model itself seems to have been trained
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on much fewer chips than somebody like OpenAI has used.
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So much less resource intense.
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And we saw with, you know, last week with President Trump announcing the initiative
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on Stargate, the US is basically assuming that this was going to be massive.
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Our AI future is going to be both massively chip and energy dependent.
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So Deep Seq seems to question that.
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Second, they're an open source model, so not proprietary.
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Llama is Meta's open source model, but again, OpenAI,
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Anthropic, Google and others have used a different model.
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And once a model has been developed, it can diffuse very quickly.
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And so the question is about what kind of controls the US can keep on that.
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And then finally, the US has been hoping to slow China down.
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And you know, until three weeks ago,
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everybody would have told you the US was far ahead in AI and we were hoping
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to slow China down by control over chips through Nvidia and others.
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So the fact that this breakthrough still happened has made many people question
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whether those controls are actually useful or not.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: So, I mean, you've worked in this space for a very long time.
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Few people know China and technology as well as you do.
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I mean, are you surprised by this?
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Do you think we should be surprised?
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What's your sort of assessment?
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah. So I mean,
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I think people are surprised on the technical and scientific breakthrough.
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I think we shouldn't Take anything away from that.
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I am not a artificial intelligence scientist, but reading other people,
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they are definitely impressed in what they've accomplished.
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I don't think we should be surprised in the sense that we know that, you know,
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China has also identified AI as being critical to their national economic and
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political security and
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they're going to do everything they can to make sure that they are competitive.
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And we shouldn't be surprised that China seems to have found ways to work
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around it.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: I mean, you know, in, in sort of my mind, you know,
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AI was one of China's made in China 2025 technologies, right,
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that they established as a priority back in 2014,
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sort of a 10 year, 2015 to 2025 timeframe for
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them to become like domestic champions and then global champions.
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And we've seen what they've been able to do in a whole host of technologies, right?
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In particular new energy vehicles, right, the EVs, clean tech.
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I mean, to my mind, this is just yet another one of those technology
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areas where China is going to demonstrate its prowess.
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It's been investing for a long time and as you said, it's a priority.
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I guess the question is what should we do about it, if anything?
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Does this signal like the need for a change in U.S policy, do you think?
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>> Adam Segal: So I think the arguments about export controls not
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working are premature, right?
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I mean, it takes a while for hardware controls to have an impact.
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There were loopholes that the Biden administration closed at the end there,
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so those will have an effect.
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And we probably shouldn't take this narrow breakthrough for
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one system to stand in for the entire ecosystem.
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So the chips themselves are incredibly important for diffusion and
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how other companies use it.
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And that clearly is going to have an effect.
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And the Chinese themselves, I mean, the, you know,
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the founder of Deep Seq keeps on saying our biggest burden is access to chips.
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So they're clearly having a bite.
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So I think that's probably premature, a major rethink on there.
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I think the big question that is still open and we just don't know how the Trump
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administration is going to respond is in the last week the Biden administration
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issued an executive order on AI diffusion, which has to do about, you know,
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how many chips can be sent to certain countries and what the hyperscalers,
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the cloud companies where they can build their data centers.
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And you know, we didn't really know how the Trump administration was going to
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respond to that.
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They have typically said that they think regulations on AI have slowed the US down.
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So I think we'll have to wait and see about how they think about that.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: So it seems like just in the past few weeks,
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both with the sort of development or the sort of the whole arrival of Deep Seq and
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then the change in administration here, there's going to be a lot of
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uncertainty about where this AI race, so to speak, is gonna go.
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, I mean, I think the Tumper mission has been very clear in
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their first executive order on AI, which came out last week as well,
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that a lot of the talk about that was very prominent in the Biden
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administration about trust and safety and regulation.
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The Trump administration is thinking a lot about investment in infrastructure,
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talking a lot about energy and how they're gonna supply the energy for
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their, as I said before, the regulation they see is slowing it down.
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So that direction I think is pretty clear.
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The questions about export controls, I think we're going to
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still see a debate inside the administration where they come out on.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Great.
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So let's now turn to what I really want to talk to you about,
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which is all about these cyber attacks that we've experienced here,
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Chinese cyber intrusions.
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And you had a great piece in Foreign affairs last week
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talking about Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon and Flax Typhoon.
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So first of all, who comes up with these names and do they actually mean anything
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but really like what are the Chinese trying to accomplish here and
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is this all state directed or what's, what's the,
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what's sort of the purpose of everything here?
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, the names are terrible.
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Every company comes up with their own names and so
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often it's hard to figure out who's referring to who.
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And there we, when we talk about.
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Talk about Russia, we talked about the bears, right?
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There was Cozy Bear and others.
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So the typhoon refers to China and Asia.
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It's a Microsoft usage, but they're not helpful.
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So if we think about Chinese cyber operations,
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essentially there's espionage, right?
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So that would be the Salt Typhoon and the Flax Typhoon,
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which is collecting information.
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And China conducts both political military espionage and industrial espionage.
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So to steal secrets from the private sector,
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espionage is against a whole range of targets, right?
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So we know the campaign, the Harris and the Trump campaigns,
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State Department, Treasury, Commerce, all of the kind of people
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who make decisions that will affect China's national interests.
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But we also know they target journalists who are writing about issues that China is
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concerned about, right.
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So when Bloomberg was doing stories about the personal wealth of Chinese leaders,
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they went after Bloomberg and reporters and New York Times reporters,
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they go after activists in areas that China's interested in.
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So Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, all those people are targets.
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And then there's a set of the cyber operations attacks,
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penetrations that look to be preparing for possible military conflicts, right?
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So that is what Volt Typhoon was.
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So in those instances, Chinese operators were on critical infrastructure.
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What the term of art is pre positioning, Right.
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So leaving some malware there in case there is a conflict in the Taiwan Strait,
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so they can cause social disturbances, take some systems down,
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slow US Decision making down, and in some ways act as a deterrent.
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Right.
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Remind the United States leadership that any conflict we have is not
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going to remain in the Western Pacific.
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We can also reach out and touch you in some way.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: So. And was this malware spread throughout our
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entire country in all different kinds of systems,
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could it have affected our water supply, our electricity?
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I mean, was it everywhere through everything or.
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>> Adam Segal: No. I mean, and so Salt Typhoon, which is
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the one I wrote about in Foreign Affairs, Salt seems to have been telecoms, right?
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So it was taking advantage of some vulnerabilities they discovered in
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telecoms.
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Vault Typhoon has been found in some
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critical infrastructure around ports,
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and cranes, and things like that.
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The government has been fairly vague about what type of systems it's founded in,
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but we don't know how far and wide it's been.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: So, you know,
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that actually reminds me of that whole discussion.
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I mean, it could have been as much as a year ago, I guess, about cranes being,
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you know, potentially at risk from a Chinese intervention.
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And a lot of people kind of laugh that off.
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But what you're suggesting is that was absolutely the case and perhaps
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the US Government already knew about it but hadn't released the information.
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, it could have been, but it also,
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the US Government pushes back on Chinese technology for the vulnerability and
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disruption reason and also for the data collections reasons.
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So I think the argument with the ports as well as airport scanners and
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things is what type of data can be collected about movement through
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those areas and sent back to China?
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Not about shutting it all down?
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>> Adam Segal: Not necessarily, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, so what about where we're at?
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I mean, obviously the companies and you know,
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our government discovered these intrusions and called them out,
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called the Chinese and we think this is all state directed.
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Correct. This isn't just sort of independent
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actors, you know, hacking, you know, some, one individual Chinese hacker sitting in
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a dark room, you know, going after, you know, US Critical infrastructure.
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah. So it's not,
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it's definitely not an individual, it's groups, what.
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And in some cases it may be contractors.
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So as you said, the US Government called out Chinese actors.
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They also sanction some private companies that they say that
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supported the operation.
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So we know that the Ministry of State Security, the mss,
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contracts with some private companies to do some operations.
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We're looking kind of at a growing ecosystem of
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private companies that support the state and
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are told which targets to go after.
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But on industrial espionage,
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in some cases they may freelance to raise their own money and things.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: But I mean, sanctions, honestly,
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what are they going to accomplish actually, right?
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I mean, what does the sanction involve?
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Saying you can't do business with the United States?
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Presumably a number of these companies aren't doing a lot of business with
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the United States in any case.
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I mean, how effective is a sanction on a Chinese company that's hacking?
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And aren't there just a million more of them?
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, I think sanctions,
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we probably need to sing with what level the sanctions are and who's targeted.
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So sanctions at the.
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I totally agree.
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At the firm level and we've indicted individuals before, you know,
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those are not effective.
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Right. As you said,
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those companies don't do business with the United States or
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they can just create a front company, which they do all the time.
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If you're an individual hacker, you know, as long as you're not dumb.
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Sometimes they are dumb, but as long as you're not dumb and
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travel to Thailand or the Czech Republic and then get arrested there,
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you're not ever gonna see the inside of a US court.
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So that doesn't seem to do very much.
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It doesn't deter it.
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It also serves some purpose in kind of letting other countries know
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what we think is bad action so they can hopefully also do the same thing and
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calls them out and warns other countries as well.
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There could be an argument that maybe we should be sanctioning higher.
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Right, at a higher level until we be figure out who's ordering the attacks or
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who's immediately benefiting.
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And the example that we could look at is that if we go back to
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the Obama administration where we did sign this agreement
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with the Chinese about cyber enabled espionage.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: That was economic espionage.
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>> Adam Segal: Economic espionage.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Particular >> Adam Segal: Part of the way we probably
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brought the Chinese to the table was there were leaks that the US Was
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considering sanctioning somebody very, very high up about.
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And who's benefiting from these leaks, from these hacks?
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>> Elizabeth Economy: In an economic context.
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>> Adam Segal: In an economic context, right.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: They're [INAUDIBLE] financially from this.
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>> Adam Segal: Yes, yeah.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right, that does seem like an easier use case.
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: But what about like our own capabilities?
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Is there an argument to be made that we should basically do unto others as others
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do unto you, that we should demonstrate our own cyber offensive capabilities and
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perhaps that would be a greater det.
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Deterrent?
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>> Adam Segal: So I think we have to distinguish between what types of
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operations, because political military operations, spying.
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The US does that, right?
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And so it's hard to call out China for that when we do it our do it ourselves.
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So that's on us to defend ourselves better.
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There is possibly a way to disrupt Chinese operations.
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And the Biden administration cyber strategy from the Defense Department,
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from the Pentagon talks about defending forward, so
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preventing attacks before they ever get to U.S. networks.
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Which means, you know, disrupting them in third countries or
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possibly even disrupting them on Chinese networks we don't know a lot about.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Just so I'm clear, does that require knowing the source of
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the attack, the likely source of the attack?
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So, we have some sense of who the bad actors are in China, and
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we just get into their system basically and disrupt them before they.
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>> Adam Segal: Essentially, yes, exactly.
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So, we're probably sitting on their systems and seeing what they're doing and
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we choose to disrupt it before they can ever launch it.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay.
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>> Adam Segal: So the only public examples we have of this are from the.
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Against Russia, not against China.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay.
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>> Adam Segal: So like we took down the, the Internet Research Agency in St.
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Petersburg, which was doing, you know, disinformation operations on,
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you know, US platforms, social media platforms.
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We took down some of their infrastructure and
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in some cases we actually knew the individual operators and
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sent them text messages saying, we know you're doing this, stop it.
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So, >> Elizabeth Economy: I wonder what they
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thought when they got those messages.
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>> Adam Segal: They probably thought it was pretty funny.
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But there's no public reporting about what that would mean for China.
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So you would want to disrupt it right now on pre positioning and
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critical infrastructure, there has been some argument that
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maybe we can come to some types of agreements with the Chinese.
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Right, about what types of attacks are considered valid.
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And the Chinese did sign off.
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There's a, there's discussions in the U.N.
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It's, it's through a group called the Group of Government Experts.
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And they came up with a certain set of norms about how states should behave in
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cyberspace and China signed that agreement.
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But the norm is not very constraining.
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The norm around critical infrastructure says non-interference on
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critical infrastructure during peace time.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay?
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>> Adam Segal: Right, so interference is a pretty high bar.
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So the Chinese might be able to argue that.
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Well, yeah, we were on it, but we didn't interfere with it.
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And in fact, you can see, you can see when US government officials call China out for
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assault typhoon, sorry for Volt typhoon, they say it's escalatory and dangerous.
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They don't say it broke any norms.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Got it, okay?
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>> Adam Segal: So? >> Elizabeth Economy: So It's a little bit
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like a zone activity in the digital space.
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>> Adam Segal: Exactly.
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And so again, there may be some, there have been attempts before
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trying to talk to the Chinese about can we talk about some types
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of critical infrastructure that should be off limits or, or.
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But there's no doubt that the US does the same thing and
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lets the, and lets the Chinese know in, in some way.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, the Chinese just don't publicize it the way
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that we do.
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Okay, so you mentioned Russia, and I'm really interested.
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You know, we've heard, you know, Russia is a bad actor in this space.
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Iran, North Korea, you know,
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are they all the same in terms of how they approach this?
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Are they different?
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Do they work together?
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You think they're learning from each other?
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, so there's a great quote from Rob Joyce,
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who used to be at the NSA, and he used to say that
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Russia is like a hurricane and China is climate change.
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Right, so we see lot, you know, especially around Ukraine, we see,
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see lots of destructive, disruptive attacks from Russia.
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We've seen Russia use it in a military conflict which we've never, you know,
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which we haven't seen before.
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We see lots of Russian based ransomware gangs, right?
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That, you know, do attacks against, you know, US Hospitals and schools and things.
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But those are criminal gangs that the Russians turn a blind eye to, to.
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And China is kind of more disciplined and also has a longer game, right?
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Because China has global technologies and
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Russia no longer has any global technology.
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Iranians less sophisticated, but also more willing to take risks.
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North Koreans have still considered, still continue doing espionage,
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and you know, trying to collect information, but have really focused on
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theft of cryptocurrencies to fund the regime and to fund the missile programs.
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So the North Koreans are really, really focused on raising money.
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Now there, there doesn't seem to be, there's definitely interaction,
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but they don't do operations together, right?
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In the sense of we have to remember that these are usually the spy agencies that
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conduct these operations and spy agencies don't trust each other.
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And also it's good to remember that even after China and Russia signed what was,
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many people said was a no hacking agreement,
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that neither side would hack each other.
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Weeks later, both sides reported that the other side was hacking each other.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: That's hilarious.
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>> Adam Segal: So that there's probably not a lot of cooperation on that level.
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They do seem to be learning from each other around disinformation and
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online operations.
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So the Chinese, what the Chinese do on Facebook and X, and
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other things looks more like what the Russians do than it used to, right?
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Before, the Chinese were mostly about trumpeting, you know,
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CCP success and what Xi Jinping did.
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And now they're much more willing to press on socially divisive issues and try to,
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you know, get Americans to yell at each other like the Russians do, right?
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>> Elizabeth Economy: We saw some of that on January 6th, I think, right?
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>> Adam Segal: Exactly.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: And the Chinese were in the mix during that time.
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, and there's definitely technological cooperation.
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So, you know, Huawei in particular has done a lot of work in Russia that
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the Russians learned and lot a lot of technologies to help control the Internet.
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So that also has some defensive, and security perspective.
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North Korean actors sometimes operate from inside of China.
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There was probably some training in the early days, but probably not anymore.
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So there's probably a little bit on the margins, but
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not all that important to anybody's practices.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, so it's not a collective effort on the part of these
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sort of four disruptive actors and, you know, coordinated and not.
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>> Adam Segal: On cyberattacks.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: How are we going to go after the United States?
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And it's.
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>> Adam Segal: I mean, just to use other example from just this area about
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not wanting to share, like, it took the US A long time.
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To give NATO some sense of its capabilities in this space.
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They were so tightly held that NATO used to complain all the time, like,
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we have no idea what you're capable of and what you're doing.
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We probably shared more closely with GCHQ and the Brits, but It s because it's so
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tightly controlled, intelligence countries don't like to share it.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: Right.
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And besides, some of it we probably are using to learn about even what our
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allies and partners are doing sometimes.
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Okay, so let's tie this up and talk a little bit about the strategy that you
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wrote for sort of State Department, for the Biden administration
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that does deal with our allies and partners and how we should work together.
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Because presumably we are not the only ones facing these kinds of attacks
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from China.
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Others are as well.
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So what is your strategy?
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What is it that you are seeking to accomplish with the strategy?
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Did you bring allies and partners in even as you were drafting it?
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A little bit about what this was all about.
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, so the policy was broader than just the cyber things we were
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talking about.
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It was both cyber and digital.
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We had this big framing idea of digital solidarity,
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which is the idea that the US Cannot go it alone.
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We're made better off cooperating with our allies very closely on
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a whole range of issues.
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And in fact, we're made better off when their economies are innovative.
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So it's not great if the top 10 AI companies are all American and
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nobody has anything else.
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We want the French, we want the Brits,
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we want the Australians to also have really robust AI systems.
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So that was kind of the big overall framing of it.
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As you mentioned, alliances and
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partnerships were a huge part of the strategy.
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When I was writing the strategy,
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I socialized early versions of it with once in Singapore,
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so with kind of East Asian, Southeast Asian friends and partners,
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and then once in Europe to get kind of their input and feedback on it.
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And for the most part, not surprisingly, they were pretty receptive to it.
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You know, the digital solidarity framing was in contrast to digital sovereignty.
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Right. And cyber sovereignty,
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which are the views that the Russians and Chinese promote about, you know,
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you have to localize data, you have to control the Internet.
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And so we were arguing against that, that, you know,
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we're all made better off by flows, trusted flows between our partners.
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And then, of course, we were affirming the.
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The rights, respecting democratic usage of these technologies as opposed
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to strengthening surveillance and repression of minority groups.
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>> Elizabeth Economy: And so once the strategy was written, just so
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that everybody listening can understand, what then happens with that?
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Is that then, you know, do other countries sign on to it or is it's not a treaty or
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an agreement, but how do you move forward with something like this?
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>> Adam Segal: Yeah, I mean, it's really right.
27:36
If you think of any strategy, it has three audiences, as you said,
27:40
international, so other countries can know what we're going to do.
27:44
And we tried to highlight what our priorities were.
27:47
And then after I left there was an implementation strategy that was kind of
27:51
put in place that signaled some of the things that were most important
27:55
to Ambassador Fick and the Bureau.
27:57
And there were, there were, you know,
27:59
publicly they discussed two or three things had to do about AI governance,
28:03
had to do about trusted infrastructure and, and some developing partners.
28:07
There's the internal audience.
28:09
Right. So just the US government, because there
28:13
hadn't been a US government wide cyber strategy for over 12 years.
28:21
And so this was just an attempt to get everybody kind of agree to
28:25
what do we think we're accomplishing and
28:28
make sure we're all kind of going in the same direction.
28:32
So, you know, the DoD had a cyber strategy.
28:35
After I left USAID released one.
28:40
CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, didn't have a strategy,
28:45
but they had a framework.
28:46
It was international.
28:47
So this was an attempt to try to get everybody on the same page about it.
28:52
And then, finally, kind of the domestic audiences so
28:56
people will know what it is the US is trying to accomplish.
29:00
So really after the strategy came out, the hope was, yeah,
29:05
we're all going to push on these broad ideas.
29:10
And as I said, there were three or four priorities for
29:15
the last strategy came out in June of 2024.
29:19
So there was really only six months to kind of to push it forward.
29:24
But as I said, there was a lot of push on AI governance.
29:27
There had been some great work that had happened around counter ransomware and
29:34
helping our partners in Costa Rica in particular respond to that.
29:39
And could we build on that and help other countries?
29:42
And then a lot of work around trusted infrastructure.
29:45
>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, and hopefully some of that at least on the trusted
29:49
infrastructure and maybe even the counter ransomware type of work
29:53
can continue in the Trump administration, even if on the AI governance
29:58
there may be some differences of, of, of opinion and outlook.
30:03
>> Adam Segal: Look, they're not gonna keep digital solidarity and
30:05
the AI governance stuff definitely they're not going to keep.
30:08
But yes, I think kind of counter ransomware initiative
30:11
they definitely should keep.
30:12
In fact,
30:13
it's also a success story because other countries have kind of taken the lead.
30:18
So there's like four different verticals about, you know,
30:21
law enforcement international and other countries have taken the lead there.
30:26
So it's become an increasingly kind of lighter lift for NSC and
30:31
then state to direct it, and so,
30:34
we definitely should continue participating and supporting.
30:39
I think the language around trusted infrastructure in particular.
30:43
I mean, we'll have to wait to see after the 90 day review of all foreign
30:46
financial aid.
30:47
But the, the last year I was there, in the last year of the Bureau,
30:53
they received $50 million from Congress for
30:57
a cyber and digital and related technologies fund.
31:02
So that was being used to support countries that were attacked.
31:06
It was being supported, used to make arguments about why you shouldn't use
31:10
Chinese infrastructure and things like that.
31:13
And sorry, [COUGH] my sense is that Secretary Rubio is
31:17
totally onboard with that and will want to use that.
31:22
>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, and
31:23
even if you think back to the first Trump administration,
31:26
I mean they really did start the work on the clean networks, trusted networks,
31:32
which was I think continued and built up by the Biden administration.
31:37
But at least in the first Trump administration, I think there was,
31:40
you know, definitely an effort to get out, especially through,
31:44
you know, our allies and partners, but other emerging middle income economies and
31:49
talk to them and try to persuade them, you know,
31:51
not to use Chinese technology in their infrastructure.
31:55
So hopefully that element will, you know, continue.
31:59
Okay, so always finish up with five quick questions.
32:04
So here we go.
32:05
What is your must read book or article on China?
32:10
>> Adam Segal: So the article is so very cyber focused,
32:15
but it's called From Vegas to Chengdu and
32:20
it's all about kind of hacking contests.
32:25
And how China is very much tapping into the energy of what used
32:30
to be kind of information security researchers, private hackers,
32:36
and funneling that into China's offensive capabilities.
32:41
It comes out of Zurich, the Center for Security Studies.
32:44
The author is Eugenio Ben Benicassa.
32:47
It's a really great study of,
32:50
at a very kind of low in the weeds level, but lots of insight.
32:55
>> Elizabeth Economy: Sounds really interesting and
32:56
also somewhat terrifying, okay.
32:58
[LAUGll H] all right what you spent,
33:01
your time in Washington at the State Department.
33:04
What do you miss most and least about your time there?
33:10
>> Adam Segal: So, I mean, it was a very exciting time to be in State.
33:15
The Cyber and Digital Bureau was a year old when I joined, so
33:20
there was just a huge amount of energy and excitement about what we were doing.
33:26
You could tell, other people in the building wanted to be at the Bureau and
33:30
work in the Bureau.
33:32
Ambassador Fick, was a new leader and had a great energy about it.
33:36
And I know we're at a time where, there's all this questioning about the competency
33:40
of federal government officials.
33:42
But the people I worked with were some of them were political appointees,
33:45
some of them were short term, some of them had been in the Bureau for 15, 20 years.
33:50
But working on undersea cables for 15 years and
33:55
just were so incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated to the mission.
34:02
And so I missed the colleagues and people working with that.
34:07
>> Elizabeth Economy: And what don't you miss?
34:09
>> Adam Segal: Yeah, I don't miss the bureaucracy [LAUGH].
34:12
So, both on the kind of I went to DC once a month because I was still
34:17
living in New York.
34:19
Just trying to travel is for an organization that does foreign policy and
34:24
travels everywhere it's just mind-numbingly complicated and
34:29
just blows your mind.
34:30
And I had to produce a document for the interagency.
34:34
So, dealing with 18 other agencies and then inside the agencies,
34:39
15 or 20 other people giving me their comments.
34:43
And at some point I just couldn't even remember why we
34:46
were arguing about a word that no longer had any meaningful difference.
34:51
But I don't miss that.
34:53
>> Elizabeth Economy: I can relate to that.
34:55
Anything you wish,
34:56
that the US had done differently with regard to China when you were in office.
35:02
So basically looking at Biden administration policy and thinking I wish
35:07
we would have done this, and for whatever reason, we just didn't get that done.
35:12
>> Adam Segal: So I think it's a critique of the strategy as well.
35:14
And it started to happen at the end, but
35:16
I think it's actually engagement with China on these issues, right?
35:21
We didn't after certainly after the spy balloon.
35:25
But even before then, there was a lot of kind of questioning about, well,
35:29
what do we gain from talking with the Chinese about these things?
35:32
And cyber conversations have never gone well.
35:36
And there are definitely reasons why we want to think about what we're
35:39
getting out of it.
35:39
But we definitely stepped back for the majority of my time there and
35:44
certainly for the Biden administration of saying we're not going to directly
35:48
engage with the Chinese on cyber things, we're gonna do it other ways.
35:53
And I think if we were to do it again, we probably should have started earlier.
35:58
>> Elizabeth Economy: Started earlier with the strategy.
36:01
>> Adam Segal: Well, certainly should have started earlier with the strategy, but
36:04
should it also because as I.
36:06
>> Elizabeth Economy: Sort of communicating with.
36:07
>> Adam Segal: Communicating after I left.
36:10
Yeah, so, there was that discussion on AI governance with the Chinese that happened
36:15
and there were Ambassador Blinken brought up cyber in one of his last meetings.
36:20
And Ambassador Fick accompanied Secretary Blinken on that trip.
36:27
And there were discussions that were supposed to go forward, so
36:31
that would have probably been better to do earlier.
36:34
>> Elizabeth Economy: Right, yes I think the overall, the Biden administration
36:39
spent close to three years on the competition side and
36:43
really only on the last year or so began to do the managing of the competition.
36:50
What China issue do you think we don't know enough about?
36:53
Maybe it's your own.
36:55
>> Adam Segal: Yeah, I mean, so I was thinking kind of in my own field, but
37:00
I think it's true, across the board, which is,
37:04
we just have such bad understanding of how information flows.
37:09
And how different parts of the organization,
37:12
different parts of the Chinese government speak to each other and
37:15
understand what the other side is doing.
37:18
And so when I read the documents from the Chinese Foreign Ministry
37:23
about what they're trying to accomplish in cyber, I don't have any idea about.
37:30
Did the PLA have any input into this?
37:32
Did they talk to the PLA?
37:33
And so I know with the international strategy, I know the DOD had it input.
37:39
I went to the DoD three times to talk to them and
37:42
they commented on the document and just.
37:45
And that would help understand what China's which Chinese positions we
37:50
should take more seriously and which ones, are kind of.
37:54
But I think that's a problem across the field for all of us is between
38:00
limited access, centralization of control, and all the other things.
38:06
Just don't have much insight into that.
38:08
>> Elizabeth Economy: Okay, last one.
38:10
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely do you think we are to see
38:14
a breakthrough in US China relations in the next.
38:17
Let's just say in the course of the Trump administration.
38:21
>> Adam Segal: And so one being very likely or?
38:25
>> Elizabeth Economy: Ten being very likely one being.
38:27
>> Adam Segal: Very likely and a breakthrough means [LAUGH].
38:31
>> Elizabeth Economy: I would say, breakthrough.
38:32
>> Adam Segal: Yeah. >> Elizabeth Economy: Let's assume for
38:34
the sake of argument, we don't mean a breakthrough in terms of a war on Taiwan,
38:39
a breakthrough in terms of a positive stabilization improvement in
38:44
the relationship that benefits U.S. interests.
38:47
>> Adam Segal: Yeah, I'm gonna say pretty low.
38:49
I'm gonna say three.
38:52
>> Elizabeth Economy: Great,
38:53
I think you've come in the highest of anybody I know [LAUGH].
38:58
So, okay.
39:00
>> Adam Segal: Trying to be the less pessimistic least pessimistic.
39:04
>> Elizabeth Economy: [LAUGH] okay, so on that note of subdued optimism,
39:08
let me thank you, Adam, for a great conversation
39:13
on a often very complex, complicated topic.
39:17
I think you all helped all of us to understand it better.
39:23
I know the US Government is poor for not having you in it,
39:26
but the outside world is richer.
39:29
And thank you for sharing your insights with us.
39:33
>> Adam Segal: Thanks so much for having me on.
39:35
>> Elizabeth Economy: So if you enjoyed this podcast and want to hear more recent
39:38
discourse and debate on China, I encourage you to subscribe to China Considered via
39:43
The Hoover Institution, YouTube channel or podcast platform of your choice.
39:47
In our next program, we'll be talking about what the Chinese economy is looking
39:51
like on the ground with Leland Miller, founder and CEO of China Beige Book.
39:55
[MUSIC]