PRC Targeting of Commercial Telecommunications Infrastructure

I was working with MISP[0], an open-source threat intelligence sharing platform, and came across a really interesting dataset from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on China's technology research institutions[1]. I liked the data so much I built a quick cross-filter visualization on top of it to help explore it[2].

The data offers a fairly comprehensive and interesting perspective on China's research priorities and organization, I can't speak to the effectiveness of the programs themselves, but it does make me concerned that we are falling far behind in many areas, including cyber security.

[0] https://www.misp-project.org/

[1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MISP/misp-galaxy/refs/head...

[2] https://www.layer8.org/8541dd18-ff05-4720-aac7-1bd59d3921dd/

I came across that group (ASPI) before and wasn’t too impressed.

Their name suggests they are a public agency—in fact, though sponsored by the AUS defence ministry, they are non-governmental and funded in part by weapons manufacturers and foreign governments.

Their project [0] describes numerous civilian universities as “very high risk,” unnecessarily raising fears that ordinary Chinese students and researchers are dangerous.

Especially since students uni choices are heavily determined by gaokao scores, I don’t think placing labels on people based on their undergrad uni as if they handpicked them for whatever defense connections they may have makes any sense.

This is what the US is doing with Proclamation 10043 under both Trump I and Biden. Steven Miller, who will be returning to a similar role in Trump II, recently suggested banning all Chinese citizens from student visas in the US, demonstrating this irresponsible rhetorics effect.

Moreover, Australia is basically a vassal state of the US for intelligence matters—-see the debate about whether the CIA ousted the only prime minister to question the NSA’s Pine Gap facility on Australian soil. [1]

[0] https://unitracker.aspi.org.au/universities/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the...