China-Backed Hackers Target Biden Campaign in Early Sign of 2020 Election Interference

During the 2008 presidential election campaign, a group of hackers believed to be supported by the Chinese government was accused of hacking into the campaign teams of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain, obtaining email correspondence and internal documents that included the candidates’ positions on China. 

James Lewis, director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that by breaking into a campaign, a hacker could learn valuable information such as the candidate’s strategies and personal network of friends and colleagues.  

“In fact, I know the Biden campaign is writing position papers on how to deal with China. Getting access to that would be invaluable for Beijing. And that’s the primary motive,” he told VOA.  

“Will they go beyond that and actually try and interfere in the campaign the way the Russians have?” Lewis said. “I don’t know. But collect intelligence. Yes. Interfere in the campaign. Maybe.” 

Cybersecurity experts say whether ACT31 is intelligence gathering or engaging in political interference depends on how the hackers use the stolen information.  

U.S. intelligence agencies found that during the 2016 presidential election cycle, Russians successfully hacked into the email box of the campaign manager for Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, using a “phishing” strategy. The hackers then went ahead and exposed tens of thousands of stolen emails via WikiLeaks. 

Many political observers believe those emails undermined Clinton’s campaign, contributing to her loss in the 2016 election.  

Information Operations
Apart from hacking, foreign forces also use social media to spread misinformation that can mislead people or exacerbate political divisions among voters. This is referred to as “information operations” in the intelligence community.  

Chinese officials are increasingly taking advantage of social media platforms that are banned in China, such as Twitter and Facebook, to conduct information operations overseas.  

Michael Daniel, the president and CEO of Cyber Threat Alliance, an independent group of cyber security advisers, told VOA Mandarin he expects China to use information operations to promote policies and politicians that would seem more friendly to China.  

“That’s very different than trying to disrupt the electoral process and have us wonder who actually won a particular race,” he told VOA Mandarin.  

FireEye’s McNamara agreed. He added that China has been building its capability of employing information operations, and whether it will use it to interfere the U.S. election is one of the things to look for in the future.  

Yet CSIS’s Lewis offered a more concerning perspective. He said that in the past few years, China has taken a much more overtly political campaign in Australia, Taiwan, Canada and some Southeast Asian countries.   

“China is using all the tools it has to interfere with politics there. And I think they’re experimenting with a good way to do this in the U.S.,” he said. “I think the Chinese have decided they need to get into this game of political interference.” 

China has been repeatedly accused of attempting to influence the American elections. A Senate investigation in 1998 revealed that the Chinese government had illegally donated to the Democratic Party in the 1996 presidential election.  

The U.S. National Intelligence Agency reported China tried to spread misinformation in the 2018 midterm elections.  

Chinese officials have repeatedly denied that Beijing any intention of interfering with the internal affairs of other countries, and in April, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters during a daily briefing, “The U.S. presidential election is an internal affair, we have no interest in interfering in it.” 

Ping Zhang is a VOA correspondent.Lin Yang contributed to this report.This article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA)