14 DAY TRIAL // An update of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) "Section 301" investigation into China's intellectual property and technology practices policies found that the Chinese continued supporting and enabling cyber theft and intrusion into U.S. computing networks.
The "Section 301" investigation from March 2018 was the main reason behind the tariffs imposed by the U.S. on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, later expanded to $250 billion.
“We completed this update as part of this Administration’s strengthened monitoring and enforcement effort,” Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, the current U.S. Trade Representative said.
Moreover, “This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices that were the subject of the March 2018 report on our Section 301 investigation.”
As detailed in USTR's update to the 301 Report, the fact that China continued supporting cyberespionage groups allowed it to gain and maintain access to a wide range of U.S. commercial data.
This includes anything from trade secrets, intellectual property and confidential business information to internal business communications and technical data.
Chinese-linked cyber-attacks increased after the first "Section 301" investigation
China’s cyber-theft against the United States has escalated in both sophistication and frequency since the initial March 2018 findings, a point confirmed by the fact that "In November 2018, cybersecurity firm Carbon Black found a sharp rise in the third quarter of 2018 “in attacks against manufacturing companies—a type of attack that has been frequently tied to Chinese economic espionage."
Also, according to FireEye/Mandiant previously dormant Chinese-linked APT groups were reactivated, while, as a whole, hacking events sponsored by the Chinese state increased in both volume and pace according to CrowdStrike.
In support of the new findings, the USTR also mentions the indictment of a dozen entities and individuals with Chinese connections that sought to and successfully gained access to high-tech and aerospace commercial secrets.
According to The White House National Cyber Strategy (PDF) released in September 2018, "China engaged in cyber-enabled economic espionage and trillions of dollars of intellectual property theft."
Furthermore, China’s widespread use of cyber-enabled and physical theft in obtaining intellectual property and technology from businesses in strategic sectors was also highlighted by The White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in its China Technology Report (PDF).