PLA

While visiting Beihua University in Jilin City in the northeast of China in September 2006, I had the privilege of witnessing, on several occasions, some of the activities that freshmen students are routinely subjected to during their three-to-four-week military training that takes place at the beginning of the academic year all over the country.

The cyber attacks are part of what China believes will be the frontline of any attack against countries such as America, Britain and North Korea. Pentagon assessments believe that China’s race towards reaching “electronic dominance” over their rivals by 2050 is part of their view that such a dominance is “critical to seize the initiative” in the first stages of a war.

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army.