The US and China have been discreetly engaging in "war games" amid rising anger in Washington over the scale and audacity of Beijing-coordinated cyberattacks on western governments and big business, the Guardianhas learned.
State department and Pentagon officials, along with their Chinese counterparts, were involved in two war games last year that were designed to help prevent a sudden military escalation between the sides if either felt they were being targeted. Another session is planned for May.
Though the exercises have given the US a chance to vent its frustration at what appears to be state-sponsored espionage and theft on an industrial scale, China has been belligerent.
"China has come to the conclusion that the power relationship has changed, and it has changed in a way that favours them," said Jim Lewis, a senior fellow and director at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) thinktank in Washington.
"The PLA [People's Liberation Army] is very hostile. They see the US as a target. They feel they have justification for their actions. They think the US is in decline."
The war games have been organised through the CSIS and a Beijing thinktank, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. This has allowed government officials, and those from the US intelligence agencies, to have contact in a less formal environment.
Known as "Track 1.5" diplomacy, it is the closest governments can get in conflict management without full-blown talks.
"We coordinate the war games with the state department and department of defence," said Lewis, who brokered the meetings, which took place in Beijing last June, and in Washington in December.
"The officials start out as observers and become participants ... it is very much the same on the Chinese side. Because it is organised between two thinktanks they can speak more freely."
Guardian Online
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