• German Ministry Seeks to Block Chinese Chip Factory Takeover

    German Economy Minister Robert Habeck wants to stop the sale of a chip production plant to a Chinese investor. The Green Party politician has expressed concern about giving China control over key infrastructure.

  • How China’s Military Plugs into the Global Space Sector

    China is using seemingly civilian and academic Chinese research institutions to advance its military goals in space. International organizations like the International GNSS Service need to be aware that even overtly civilian entities can be intertwined with the Chinese military. Collaboration with high-risk Chinese institutions must be done with extreme care to ensure data and products intended to support international science and commerce are not redirected towards unwanted military uses.

  • U.S. Charges Chinese Spies in Huawei case

    Prosecutors allege that Chinese spies were foiled by a double agent. The U.S. Justice Department says China is trying to undermine the U.S. judicial system.

  • Russia Working Hard to Acquire Sensitive Western Military Technology

    Russia has struggled for years, if not decades, to acquire sensitive Western technology and military hardware: everything from night-vision goggles for soldiers to powerful computer chips for advanced fighter jets. How successful the effort has been is an open question, but according to news reports and military analysts, sensitive Western technologies are widely employed in Russian weaponry and military equipment.

  • Washington Raises Stakes in War on Chinese Technology

    The Biden administration is expanding its list of technology-focused sanctions on China, drawing parallels to U.S. controls targeting the Soviet Union during the Cold War – and the new U.S. sanctions are in some ways more restrictive than Cold-War era controls.

  • China’s Challenge: Why the West Should Fear President Xi’s Quest to “Catch and Surpass It’ with Technology

    Beijing’s bid for technological dominance is a threat to global security and liberty. The Western democracies must not shirk the task of confronting it.

  • China Faces Major Challenges in Achieving Goal of Global Technological Pre-Eminence

    China has overtaken the United States to top the world in the number of high-quality scientific papers it is producing, and there has been a marked improvement in the quality of China’s scientific and technological development over the past two decades. But at the same time, China has attempted to become fully self-sufficient in core technologies – a policy which is creating its own dilemma: The more the Chinese leadership promotes self-sufficiency, the harder it will be to maintain an open-door policy—and to realize its dream of becoming a science and technology great power.

  • Ukraine Warns of Looming Russian Cyberattacks

    Ukraine is again urging its companies and private organizations to immediately bolster their cybersecurity ahead of what could be a new wave of Russian attacks. The government advisory further warned that the vulnerabilities could allow Russia to launch a renewed series of targeted cyberattacks on Ukraine aimed at disabling communication and information systems.

  • Fighting Foreign Interference

    Many in Europe did not take the foreign interference threat seriously until Russia launched its war against Ukraine on 24 February, even though European nations were already subjected to a form of hybrid warfare from Russia with cyberattacks on hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic, attacks on public institutions, attempts to corrupt leaders and financing of political parties. China’s emerging interference campaign emulates Russia’s. Their goal is :to ensure the democracies no longer functioned and gave way to authoritarian regimes,” says a European expert.

  • No, Jason Bourne Is Not the Real CIA

    Ex-directors, officers, scholars mark agency’s 75th anniversary with discussion of truth, lies — especially of Hollywood kind.

  • Three Iranian Nationals Charged with Cyber Plots Against U.S. Critical Infrastructure Providers

    An indictment was unsealed Wednesday charging three Iranian nationals with allegedly orchestrating a scheme to hack into the computer networks of multiple U.S. victims, including critical infrastructure providers. The defendants’ hacking campaign exploited known vulnerabilities in commonly used network devices and software applications to gain access and exfiltrate data and information from victims’ computer systems.

  • No End in Sight to “Beginning of Putin’s End”

    The first predictions that Vladimir Putin’s reign was about to end – the wording often referred to “the beginning of the end” of Vladimir Putin’s regime – were made in 2002, three years after his ascension to power in December 1999. The number and frequency of such predictions have increased since the launch of the botched invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The staff of Russia Matters examined thirty-eight of these predictions and the context in which they were made.

  • China Intensifying Its Global Push for Media Influence

    The Chinese government’s media influence efforts, turning to more covert and aggressive tactics, have increased since 2019 in most of the 30 countries under study by a new report, but democratic pushback has often curbed their impact.

  • The Mysterious Deaths of Russian Oligarchs

    Last week, on 1 September, Ravil Maganov joined a long list of Russian oligarchs and businessmen who died under mysterious circumstances since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

  • Risks of North Korean Chemical, Biological Weapons; EMP; and Cyber Threats

    What WMD and cyber capabilities does North Korea currently have? How does North Korea use or threaten to use these capabilities? What are North Korea’s goals in employing its WMD and cyber capabilities? What impact could this use have? How can the ROK-U.S. rein in and defeat the North’s WMD and cyber capabilities?