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Why China hacks the world

New York; and Wuzhen, China

The e-mails wouldn’t have struck anyone as unusual. The messages to employees at Boeing Co.’s offices in Orange County, Calif., where the aerospace giant works on the big C-17 military transport, looked like any of the hundreds of messages from colleagues and contacts flooding inboxes every day. But beginning in the winter of 2009, two Chinese hackers began sending malicious e-mails to Boeing employees disguised to look as if they came from familiar people. Even if one employee opened the mail and downloaded the attached file, it could give hackers a portal to secrets, corporate and US Department of Defense plans, engineering details, and potentially classified Pentagon files stored on Boeing networks. And that’s exactly what happened.

Over the next two years, hackers stole some 630,000 files from Boeing related to the C-17, the third most expensive plane that the Pentagon has ever developed, with research and development costs of $3.4 billion. They obtained detailed drawings; measurements of the wings and fuselage, and other parts; outlines of the pipeline and electric wiring systems; and flight test data – a gold mine for any criminal looking to sell information on the black market. But the hackers, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, already had a buyer: Su Bin, a Chinese national and aerospace professional living in Canada.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Mr. Su on June 28, 2014, and he is currently awaiting extradition to the United States on charges of unauthorized computer access. His Chinese conspirators remain at large and unidentified. While the criminal complaint contains few details about the hackers’ true identities, the US Department of Justice says the two are members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). When extolling their credentials to Su, according to court documents, the hackers said their Boeing operation would not only give Su’s aviation firm, Lode Technologies Co., a competitive edge but also bolster Beijing’s military goals, since China’s state-owned Xian Aircraft Industrial Corp. was developing its own cargo plane.

It remains unknown if Chinese officials directed the operation. Even after National Intelligence Director James Clapper said China was a “leading suspect” in another major cyberbreach – the penetration of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that exposed sensitive data on more than 18 million current and former government employees – the US government didn’t release details implicating Chinese agents. When it comes to data theft, pinpointing culprits is one of the most challenging aspects of cybercrime forensics. But the White House appears to have one smoking gun. In May 2014, the Department of Justice charged five Chinese hackers with stealing intellectual property from Westinghouse Electric and US Steel Corp. The DOJ claimed the hackers were members of the PLA General Staff, Third Department, Unit 61398, in Shanghai – a shadowy military unit that Western security officials have identified as a hub of Chinese electronic espionage. They sought competitive gain, or, as former Attorney General Eric Holder put it, “To advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China, at the expense of businesses here in the United States.” This was a watershed event: the first instance of charges being filed against an alleged state cyber actor. The indictment of PLA cyber sleuths helps complete a portrait of China – along with the Boeing incursion, the OPM data breach, and countless other penetrations of major corporations – as the world’s most audacious and pervasive hacker.

•     •     •          

The diffusion of communication technologies has transformed commercial and political spying. Computer networks allow technologically inferior countries, small states, and even individuals to conduct surveillance operations that were once solely the purview of big states. The development of cyber-espionage tools and the movement of information online has leveled the field. Cellphones and computers are ubiquitous, so countries no longer need the capability to build and deploy bugging devices globally. As Alex Karp, chief executive officer of the California data analysis company Palantir Technologies, put it, “Software and technology has democratized espionage.”

This new age of spying is more than a national security concern. Since much cyber-espionage targets commercial secrets, it poses a persistent threat to America’s economic strength. Many countries are snooping. The US Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) names France, Israel, and Russia, among others, as states collecting economic information and technology from American companies. During the 1980s and ’90s, the business class seats on Air France planes were allegedly bugged. While the airline has long denied the allegations, French intelligence officials have been forthright about the strategic importance of industrial espionage. As Pierre Marion, former director of France’s Directorate-General for External Security, said with regard to spying on the US, “In economics, we are competitors, not allies.”

But the ONCIX places China in a category all its own: “Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.” China is so relentless because it does not want to get caught in a technology trap, where Chinese producers dominate the low-value end of economic production and continue paying expensive royalties to European, Japanese, and US patent owners. It doesn’t want to be the world’s sweatshop – stuck in a labor-intensive, energy-demanding, environmentally destructive manufacturing economy. If Chinese companies continue to rely on technology from outsiders, in the view of the Global Times newspaper, part of the Communist Party-run People’s Daily Group, they run the risk of “perpetually remaining second-tier manufacturing specialists that lack the innovation needed to become true global technology leaders.”

In its quest to move from “made in China” to “invented in China,” Beijing has committed significant resources to boosting its innovation prowess. The 20-year plan for science and technology development envisions China becoming an “innovative nation” by 2020 and a “global scientific power” by 2050. Scientific funding has increased by 12 to 20 percent annually for each of the past
20 years, and China surpassed Japan in 2010 as the world’s second largest spender on R&D. Of all degrees awarded in 2011 by Chinese universities, 41 percent were in science, technology, engineering, or math – almost three times the rate in the US. Chinese scientists stand behind only their US colleagues in the number of science and technology journal articles published each year.

But Beijing is unsatisfied with this pace. Chinese leaders view technological autonomy as critical to economic and national security. As Chinese President Xi Jinping told a gathering of top scientists and engineers in June 2014, “Only if core technologies are in our own hands can we truly hold the initiative in competition and development. Only then can we fundamentally ensure our national economic security, defense security, and other aspects of security.”

But it’s not just impatience driving China’s behavior in cyberspace. Historical grievances are a powerful motivator, too. They stem not only from the history of bullying by European imperial powers and Japan, known as the century of humiliations, but also from Western efforts to deprive China access to critical technologies during the cold war and after the Tiananmen Square massacre. For China, these Western attitudes are an insult to a country that invented paper, printing, the compass, and gunpowder. As a result, covert efforts and industrial espionage accompany the overt science and technology programs.

It’s an approach that isn’t dissimilar to other nations’ historical quests for industrial competitiveness. In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton proposed a scheme to offer money and other inducements to British engineers, German mechanists, and other foreigners to move to America in order to increase the “extent of valuable acquisitions to the population, arts, and industry.” Japanese engineer Iwama Kazuo helped Sony build its first transistor in 1954 by sending letters filled with technical details he had observed on the factory floor or gathered in conversation with his counterparts from Western Electric in the US. Industrial Age espionage happened over years and decades; now cyber-espionage takes place over hours and days. 

•     •     •

The man behind China’s digital ambitions today is Lu Wei, the gregarious head of the Cyberspace Administration of China. An ideological warrior and propagandist, Mr. Lu is known as both a workaholic and showman. Writing about him after he was selected as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2015, Jon Huntsman, former US ambassador to China, called Lu “uncharacteristically outspoken” in a system lacking transparency.

Lu’s ascent to China’s Web czar has been rapid. He rose from provincial branches of Xinhua, the national news agency, to become its secretary-
general and vice bureau chief. In 2011, authorities promoted him to vice mayor of Beijing and chief of the capital’s propaganda department. Lu moved up again in April 2013, becoming head of the State Internet Information Office, which regulates China’s Internet.

Lu’s work and thinking are essential to understanding China’s approach to the Web. From the moment Chinese users first went online a little more than two decades ago, policymakers have conceived of the Internet as a double-edged sword, essential to economic growth and good governance but also a major threat to domestic stability and regime legitimacy. Economic development has been a priority: China’s first Internet white paper, published in 2010, described the network’s “irreplaceable role in accelerating the development of the national economy.”

But Beijing has also been hypersensitive to any outside attempts to use the Internet as a democratizing tool. During much of the Obama administration, China has taken an essentially reactive stance, criticizing US efforts to promote an open, free, and global Internet. When then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered three speeches on the Internet in 2010 and 2011, asserting that users must be assured freedom of expression and religion online, as well as the right to access the Internet, Beijing responded negatively and defensively.

“Behind what America calls free speech is naked political scheming,” read the headline of one article in People’s Daily. “The United States,” the article continued, “applies double standards in implementing freedom of information: for those who have different political views or values, it waves a ‘freedom fighter’s’ club and leads a crusade against them.” Another article claimed, “One person’s Internet freedom is another’s Internet imperialism.”

Lu and others have dressed up this right to block Internet content and control access to the domestic market as Internet sovereignty. Still, Lu and his colleagues are not shy in describing their mission as transforming China from a big cyber country into a strong cyber power. The almost daily stories about Chinese hackers breaking into US networks give the impression that China rules cyberspace. Beijing, however, sees itself as vulnerable. While China has the world’s largest number of Internet users – more than 650 million – policymakers have significant concerns about Beijing’s technological prowess, the coherence of its international strategy, and its ability to respond to the growing sophistication of cyberattacks.

•     •     •

In February 2013, American cybersecurity firm Mandiant released a report contending that Unit 61398 of the PLA was behind attacks on 141 companies, including 115 in the US. Around the same time, the US Department of Homeland Security provided Internet service providers with the Internet addresses of hacking groups in China. In March 2013, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon spoke of the “serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale.” Two months later, the Pentagon blamed the Chinese government and military for numerous cyberattacks around the world. 

When President Obama and Mr. Xi met for a two-day “shirtsleeve” summit in California in June 2013, Mr. Obama spoke diplomatically, noting that cyber-espionage was not unique to the US-Chinese relationship. Privately, however, Obama was more forceful, warning Xi that the hacking could severely damage bilateral relations. It had little effect on Beijing. China has consistently denied responsibility for cyber-espionage. In fact, Xi portrayed China as a victim. In response to US claims, Chinese sources listed the Internet protocol addresses for the attacks against China, with the majority originating from Japan, the US, and South Korea.

Soon after the summit, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed himself in Hong Kong as the source of leaks exposing the spy agency’s massive digital surveillance program. Mr. Snowden also told the local press that the NSA had hacked mainland Chinese targets, including universities and telecommunications companies. The Chinese press jumped on the allegations. By the end of the year, state-owned media were referring to the US as “the real hacking empire.”

The revelations, at least temporarily, vitiated the diplomatic pressure Washington was putting on Beijing. After being named responsible for the New York Times hack in February 2013, Unit 61398 temporarily curtailed its activities. Yet other groups in China seemed to pick up the slack. The Chinese government kept up a steady stream of denials, counteraccusations, and claims of victimhood. Moreover, by September, Unit 61398 was back doing its mischief again. Throughout these months, Congress searched for ways to raise the cost to China by pursuing a trade case in the World Trade Organization, levying economic sanctions and travel restrictions on suspected cyber spies, and blocking Chinese companies that benefited from espionage from participating in US markets. The Obama administration’s next step was the indictment of the PLA hackers.

But countering China’s cyberefforts is difficult, in part because of conflicting goals and definitions: The US wants to stop attacks on private industry resulting in intellectual property theft but leave the NSA free to conduct political and military espionage. As Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and NSA, put it: “You spy, we spy, but you just steal the wrong stuff.”

•     •     •

In the wake of the Snowden revelations and the PLA indictments, Beijing increased its focus on the security of the products it purchased from Microsoft and others. China Economic Weekly, owned by the People’s Daily, ran the headline “He’s Watching You” under the image of a helmeted head from a World War II-era US propaganda poster inscribed with the NSA logo. The article warned of “eight guardian warriors” – Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Qualcomm, Apple, and Google – that “have seamlessly infiltrated China.”

Many of these companies would soon find new barriers to doing business in China. Banks were encouraged to swap out IBM servers for ones from Inspur, a local brand, and government workers in a northeastern city replaced Microsoft Windows with NeoKylin, a Chinese-developed operating system. Chinese officials in Shanghai and other cities were told to ditch their Apple iPhones for Huawei phones. Then, in January 2015, Beijing circulated regulations that would force foreign technology companies supplying Chinese banks and other critical sectors to turn over secret source code, submit to invasive audits, and build surveillance backdoors into hardware and software. 

Chinese officials justified the moves by pointing to the Snowden revelations and to what they saw as similar actions by the US government in blocking market access to Chinese companies. Most of China’s annoyances center on Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world. It has been blocked from a number of deals in the US that would have opened up America’s Internet to Huawei products. Bill Bishop, an American observer of Chinese technology and social media who lived in Beijing from 2005 to 2015, calls what the Chinese government has done to US technology companies “being Huawei’d” – cast as suspicious and shut out of the market. As one senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official said, “If you do this to Huawei, what do you expect us to do?”

•     •     •

Feuds over spying used to be relatively innocuous. In the days of trench coats and crude listening devices, Moscow, London, and Washington followed a set of unstated rules on how to treat each other’s intelligence agents, sometimes expelling diplomats after a dramatic incident or when spying reached unacceptable levels. The idea of PNG’ing a person – declaring a diplomat persona non grata – and sweeping the fallout from espionage under the rug looks quaint today.

Whether last year’s hack of the OPM was digital espionage or the work of criminal hackers working outside any official Chinese agencies, the scope of the breach can’t be ignored. The hackers compromised 22 million records, including security background checks and data on intelligence and military personnel, as well as the fingerprints of 5.6 million people. What’s more, they gained access to OPM’s Standard Form 86, which includes information perfect for blackmail – records of financial trouble, drug use, alcohol abuse, and adulterous affairs. The records could allow Chinese counterintelligence agencies to identify spies working undercover at US embassies around the world. “This is not the end of American human intelligence,” said Joel Brenner, former senior counsel at the NSA, “but it’s a significant blow.”

The US is not the only target of this massive espionage network. Chinese hacker units have broken into computers belonging to BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest defense company; Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which makes weapons for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces; India’s Eastern Naval Command and Defense Research and Development Organization; and, between 2009 and 2011, three Israeli defense firms responsible for building the “Iron Dome” missile shield, which protects the country from rocket attacks from Gaza and Lebanon.

Electronic spies are also on the lookout for political information. Chinese hackers have targeted the offices of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exile centers in Brussels; Dharamsala, India; London; and New York. They also targeted embassies, foreign ministries, and other government offices of Germany, India, Indonesia, Romania, South Korea, Taiwan, and others. In July 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS News that it was “very likely” the Chinese and Russians were reading his e-mails, and that he writes all of them with that threat in mind.

•     •     •

By the time Obama welcomed Xi to the White House in September, cyber-espionage was at the top of the diplomatic agenda. The trip was especially important to Xi to bolster his image with the Chinese public as a strong world leader. Chinese officials met with their US counterparts numerous times to ensure the visit was not disrupted by protocol errors, such as those that occurred at the 2006 summit with President George W. Bush when a heckler yelled at President Hu Jintao and the announcer used the official name for Taiwan, the Republic of China, instead of the People’s Republic of China to introduce the national anthems. The state dinner was a lavish affair. But even with all the pomp, the strain of digital hostilities hung over the pageantry. In the weeks before the meeting, US officials suggested that the White House would sanction Chinese individuals or entities that benefited from cybertheft. Because of the OPM hack, several presidential hopefuls called for Obama to cancel the summit or downgrade it to a working meeting.

The threat of sanction appeared to rattle China. At the conclusion of the summit, the US claimed that the two sides had agreed that “neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.”

But just three weeks after the agreement, cybersecurity firms reported new attacks by Chinese hackers on US pharmaceutical firms. Even so, the agreement was a diplomatic victory. Shortly after he visited Washington, Xi agreed in a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron that neither side would conduct commercial espionage. A few weeks after that, China and Germany announced that they would sign an agreement in 2016 to stop economic cyberspying. Similar agreements followed involving China, Brazil, Russia, the US, and other members of the Group of 20.

But history has proved that hard-fought diplomatic victories are often ethereal. In other words, don’t expect China to rein in its legions of hackers just yet. Beijing is closely monitoring what the US is doing in cyberspace, including the Pentagon’s plan to build out cyber command to a force of 6,000 by the end of 2016. US officials don’t see their efforts as creating an arms race, but it is safe to assume that China will develop its own cyber capabilities to avoid falling behind.

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Moreover, with Xi’s desire to turn China into a “great cyber power,” Beijing will continue to pursue a strategy of exerting sovereignty over cyberspace, which is bound to create friction with Washington. The challenge for the two sides from here will be to identify some rules that will keep tensions low – and keep a full-scale cyberwar from erupting.

Excerpted from “The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age,” by Adam Segal. Available from PublicAffairs, a member of The Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2016.

Why China hacks the world

Search Just What's on Your Mind ? . . .

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Alternet Targets $2 Billion Foothold Into $1 Trillion Electric Vehicle Market

DALLAS, July 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Alternet Systems, Inc. (USOTC: ALYI), an innovative electric vehicle company concentrating on the African market, today published a bulletin outlining in further detail the company’s recently announced development project to construct an advanced electric mobility site in Africa covering approximately 100 acres. The site is a key component of an overall $300 million initiative designed to expand rapidly beyond the initial $300 million scope. ALYI has executed a $2.5 million investment deal intended to fund the design and engineering of the advanced electric mobility site. The $2.5 million is an advance on a $25 million investment currently committed under a letter of intent. The bulletin is included below in its entirety within this release:

Bulletin: Advanced Electric Mobility Site Supporting $300 Million Initiative

ALYI in an innovative company dedicated to electric mobility. The company was founded on developing a patented portfolio of lithium battery technologies and has evolved into its current focus on developing complete electric mobility solutions for the African market.

ALYI CEO, Dr. Randell Torno, contends that the immediate opportunity for electric powered transportation growth in Africa by far exceeds the electric powered transportation opportunity anywhere else in the world and that the electric mobility technology innovations that will be developed for Africa will ultimately form the foundation of commercial electric powered transportation everywhere. In short, Africa is the global proving ground for electric powered transportation.

Long-Term Corporate Sustainability Strategy

ALYI’s evolutionary approach to developing electric mobility solutions was designed for sustainability. Separate from ALYI’s innovative, paradigm changing, electric mobility initiative, management maintains a residual consulting business leveraging the team’s extensive operational experience in Africa. The consulting operations cover fundamental expenses and have permitted the company to endure its way through to the prevailing investment market acceptance of electric vehicle innovation.

Story continues

CEO Dr. Torno has been working on the ground in the Middle East or Africa since 2007. He was recalled to active duty as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq in 2007. He received the Bronze Star in the course of his combat tour. After finishing his tour in Iraq, Dr. Torno was requested by name for duty in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a deployment lasting 3 years. He retired from the Army in 2011 and was shortly thereafter contracted by Northrop Grumman and other companies to work in Africa on a myriad of projects in countries from Senegal to South Africa. He holds a PhD in Public Policy and Political Economics from the University of Texas.

Ed Bollen, the President of ALYI served 30 years with the U.S. Government, first as a U.S. Marine and then working within the U.S. intelligence community. Since then, Mr. Bollen has worked on management consulting projects in North America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and South America. He has supported military and law enforcement operations, as well as aviation and maritime services. Mr. Bollen has worked on projects with Boeing, Bell Helicopter, Sikorsky Aircraft, Raytheon, General Electric, Lockheed, Marin Marietta, L-3 Communications, Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding. He has trained United Nations’ international arms inspectors; established a counterterrorism task force in Ethiopia; worked directly with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and Jericho, and been the boots on the ground in Liberia at the height of its second civil war implementing counter insurgency measures. Mr. Bollen has an undergraduate degree in history from Florida State University and graduate degree in comparative religion and religious history from The College of William & Mary.

ALYI’s Initial $300 Million Electric Mobility Initiative And Beyond

From its founding in patented lithium technology commercialization, ALYI has evolved into an innovative electric vehicle company with an initial $300 million electric mobility initiative in Africa designed to rapidly expand beyond the initial $300 million scope. The $300 million initiative includes a key customer for ALYI’s Revolt Electric Motorcycle, and a comprehensive annual electric mobility event designed to both fuel the branding and marketing of ALYI’s current and future electric vehicles in addition to serving as a catalyst in the development of all ALYI’s future electric mobility solutions.

ALYI’s Revolt Electric Motorcycle is a rugged design that has now endured two rounds of prototyping and testing and is ready for production. The Revolt Electric Motorcycle will be manufactured in Kenya initially for the Kenyan ride-share market. Motorcycles are already widely accepted and in use as taxi’s in Africa.

The branding and marketing for ALYI’s current and future electric mobility solutions will be built on the company gaining recognition for its annual electric mobility conference and symposium that includes an already branded anchor event. The anchor event is part of an existing and well established $6 billion industry. The annual electric mobility conference and symposium and anchor event is expected to contribute significantly to both ALYI’s top and bottom line, in addition to providing a catalyst to the development of future ALYI mobility solutions.

The annual electric mobility conference and symposium and anchor event will have a dedicated facility in Kenya. The advanced electric mobility center will host the annual event and the facility itself will serve as a key component of generating revenue and advancing electric mobility technology. As currently contemplated, the facility is anticipated to span approximately 100 acres as necessary to support its intended function.

The company is containing the release of any further specifics regarding the facility or the anchor event at this time, to maintain competitive advantage and in respect to certain disclosure restrictions.

ALYI has executed a $2.5 million investment deal intended to fund the design and engineering of the advanced electric mobility site. The $2.5 million is an advance on a $25 million investment currently committed under a letter of intent.

Cryptocurrency Partner’s $25 Million Investment And $50 Million Valuation

On June 30, 2020 ALYI entered into a letter of intent (LOI) for a $25 million first tranche investment to fund ALYI’s overall $300 million electric mobility initiative in Africa.

The planned ALYI investment is one component of the investor’s overall $100 million initial cryptocurrency offering (ICO) strategy. The investor is independently launching an ICO dedicated to funding ALYI’s overall $300 million electric mobility project in Africa with future plans to fund additional electric mobility initiatives in Africa. The investor has already partitioned a cryptocurrency on the Ethereum Blockchain in advance of the planned ICO.

The $25 million first tranche investment is structured at a $50 million pre-money valuation of ALYI in consideration of the company’s $300 million electric mobility initiative. The $25 million first tranche investment represents a valuation of ALYI common stock at approximately $0.05 per share.

The first $25 million tranche is structured to result in a change of control with the investor becoming the controlling shareholder. A management change is not part of the planned investment. Randell Torno will remain as the Chief Executive Officer. A second tranche at a valuation calculated after the first $25 million investment is planned before the end of the year.

$2 Billion Niche Expected To More Than Double To $5 Billion By 2024

“Africa is urbanizing faster than any other continent, at a rate of 4% every year, compared to the global average of 2%. Its rapidly growing urban population continues to strain existing infrastructure – transport and energy, in particular.” – World Economic Forum

“In 2017, 77% of Kenya’s electricity demand was met through renewable energy. – Kenya Power 2017 Annual Report

The growth opportunity to provide net new transportation solutions in Africa is much higher than in any developed region where most electric vehicle companies are currently concentrating market development efforts. Within developed economic regions, the electric vehicle opportunity requires replacing combustion engine transportation rather than simply providing a net new transportation opportunity.

With leading urbanization and sustainable energy statistics, Africa is arguably better positioned for electric vehicle growth than other developing economic regions.

With the current strain on existing infrastructure in Africa combined with the advance and acceptance of ride-share technologies, it is unlikely the African economy will ever grow to accept the individual consumer vehicle owned transportation paradigm that most electric vehicles are being produced to serve. Africa is much more likely to evolve and grow its existing $2 billion in annual sales ride-hailing and taxi market expected to grow to $5 billion by 2024, than change courses and adopt an induvial consumer owned vehicle transportation model.

ALYI’s $300 million initiative is centered on penetrating that $2 billion market and leading its evolution into the adoption of electric vehicles and ride-sharing applications. ALYI management has carefully and deliberately identified and carved out a substantial niche for itself within the overall electric vehicle market. That niche is only the start of ALYI’s long-term plans. ALYI management expects to leverage the African electric vehicle ride-share niche as a foothold to expand into the overall electric vehicle market expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2027.

For more information and to stay up to date on the latest developments, please visit: http://www.alternetsystemsinc.com

Disclaimer/Safe Harbor:

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company’s current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies’ contracts, the companies’ liquidity position, the companies’ ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur.

Alternet Systems, Inc. Contact:

Randell Torno
info@lithiumip.com
+1-800-713-0297

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alyi–alternet-targets-2-billion-foothold-into-1-trillion-electric-vehicle-market-301092829.html

SOURCE Alternet Systems, Inc.

Alternet Targets $2 Billion Foothold Into $1 Trillion Electric Vehicle Market

Search Just What's on Your Mind ? . . .

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We must work together to build a new world order. This is how we can do it

It is almost 30 years since the former Warsaw Pact countries were invited to a NATO gathering for the first time. It was a last-minute decision to invite them and some name plates were missing. I remember a delegate from an Eastern European country asking me in a somewhat embarrassed tone, “Sorry miss, but I do not seem to have a nameplate”.

It was the end of the Cold War, we were unprepared for the drastic changes taking place but at the same time, all of us, no matter how small our roles, had to think fast on our feet. I rushed to the stationery cupboard, found a cardboard box, a pair of scissors and a marker. The gentleman nodded at me with a gracious smile, his eyes beaming at the makeshift representation of his country at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s annual event. As a young intern in 1991, that was my contribution to the end of the Cold War.

The need to act expeditiously in times of great change is as relevant as ever. However, the West’s strategy to deal with change in the international order has been one of intransigent denial, while zealously clinging onto what we inherited from the Cold War.

Much of this denial to face change has been embedded in what was the original ‘transatlantic bargain’ and the fact that it was much too good a deal to be jettisoned for something else. The transatlantic bargain was to economically rebuild Europe from the ashes of a devastating war so that it became the principal strategic partner in a global political economy, while the US provided the bulwark of security against the Soviet Union with extended nuclear deterrence.

The moral imperative behind this deal, which strengthened the social legitimacy of its international institutions, was the need to defend a certain ‘way of life’ against a different one. That murky definition was coloured with the principles of freedom, democracy and human rights, but there were parts of the so-called ‘Western bloc’ that did not fall within these principles at all.

It was only after the Cold War that putting the defence of principles before the practicality of military defence became a reality. This was not because of any benign intent. The immediate post-Cold War period rested on a grand design to absorb the post-communist world into the transatlantic institutions that were inherited from the Cold War, and the forebearer of that absorption were norms and values.

Even then a European scholar had commented that wars like Yugoslavia may not have had a direct bearing on the West’s economic and security interests, but they constituted ‘bad examples’ at a time when ‘we’ in the West were trying to advance enlargement of institutions through universal values. It was a time when values and norms did become the interests at hand.

Eventually, the past 27 years evolved into a struggle of maintaining that post-Cold War grand design with the enlargement of the EU and NATO, whilst a battle of norms ensued as Russia and China also took a stab at owning international norms to fit their own designs.

At the heart of Russia’s realpolitik ventures in its own region, was an attempt to curb Western normative expansion in its neighbourhood. While the intervention in Georgia in 2008 was framed as one undertaken under ‘international humanitarian law’, the annexation of Crimea was presented as one of championing ‘self defence’. Both were concepts used quite widely in the break-up of Yugoslavia and the ensuing NATO interventions in both Bosnia and Kosovo.

China, on the other hand, prefers to promote and soften its growing international influence by referring to ‘cooperation’, and a ‘win-win’ approach under a globalist outlook. China’s use of infrastructure-for-resources loans in Africa, as well as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been put forward as a new regional and globalist ‘win-win’ strategy.

Underlying this approach are nevertheless serious challenges to the persistent transatlantic-centred liberal world order. Not only does the BRI present new challenges to the management of the global commons as primary trade routes, but it also presents a new path paved with investment, not just trading routes, that grow together with alternative new institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

At the end of the day, what has not changed since the 1990s is that power and influence are still being dressed up in normative language to legitimize expansion. The only difference being in the 1990s the ‘transatlantic core’ held the original copyright, whereas today other powers are playing the same game.

This has exacerbated the transatlantic core’s tendency to refuse to accept change in the global order. At the heart of this has been a persistent rejection of Russian attempts to circumvent international norms, that have proved to be both disturbing and frustrating for the West.

Another reason why this denial of change persisted so long was the impending doom of replacing that order with a downward spiral into chaos. It was the vision of a lack of alternatives that stoked this fear of not letting go of the 1990s. What lay behind this was the erroneous belief that, the mission of shaping the world through essentially western institutions and norms, “gave diverse people a sense of a shared mission and a common vocabulary.” This is likely to be less and less the case.

However, does this necessarily mean the international order will have no alternative but to descend into chaos or something far worse? Furthermore, we should ask ourselves if a changed international order, ought to necessarily be an illiberal one? The answer to both questions is if the emergent, the rising and the declining, can manage change together. Surely this is the true ‘win-win’ scenario that all can benefit from. Perhaps a brave new world in the making, one that we can all embrace and shape together is not so far-fetched an idea.

This brings us to the hardest part in answering these questions. How can change be managed together? There are no easy answers but the starting point has to focus on what needs to be done. There are a long list of challenges that impact us all, from creating sustainable peace and growth, to curbing the growing global refugee crisis, and tackling climate change.

By working together in a global functional framework, we can create a ‘Mitrany’ model for the world, of pragmatic international cooperation, where transnational and international webs of transactions focusing on a particular activity will eventually lead to more solid, normative bonds in international relations.

Mitrany’s model of functionalism worked in creating those bonds in post-War Europe. With the building of bonds and trust through functional cooperation we can thus create a Mitrany model for the world, where we will eventually write our own common norms that bind us together. Perhaps these will be the same norms that were embedded in the transatlantic bargain that created a liberal world order, but they will no longer be empty words, but tangible deeds attached to values that mean something.

In 1945, the focus was to rebuild after a devastating war. Despite the onslaught of the Cold War, there was much that brought people and states together. What was behind the original transatlantic bargain was not a vision laced with fancy words but deeds that built order from ashes. That is what gave meaning to those values and the institutions that upheld them.

Perhaps we will move from an order of ‘interlocking institutions’ to ‘interlocking regions’. Interlocking institutions was a phrase coined in the 1990s that referred to reconstituted transatlantic institutions such as NATO, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, at the heart of a renewed and expanding liberal world order.

This is now likely to be replaced with interlocking regions, where there is no institutional or normative core, but competing and cooperative structures of convenience forming global webs of transactions between different regions and different regional institutions. This has to be the heart of managing change together.

We must work together to build a new world order. This is how we can do it

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China is the world’s new science and technology powerhouse

Chinese R&D investment has grown remarkably over the past two decades. It is now the second-largest performer in terms of R&D spending, on a country basis, and accounts for 20 percent of total world R&D expenditure, with the rate of R&D investment growth greatly exceeding that of the U.S. and the EU.

This piece was originally published in BRINK Asia.

Scientific knowledge and its use in technology and economic and societal development has become increasingly global and multipolar. While Europe and the U.S. have traditionally led in scientific development, China in particular has emerged as a new science and technology (S&T) powerhouse.

A key indicator of the rise of China in S&T is its spending on research and development (R&D). Chinese R&D investment has grown remarkably over the past two decades, with the rate of growth greatly exceeding that of the U.S. and the EU.

China is now the second-largest performer in terms of R&D spending, on a country basis, and accounts for 20 percent of total world R&D expenditure. It is also increasingly prominent in industries that intensively use scientific and technological knowledge.

Exhibit 1: R&D spending in billions of dollars (current, in purchasing power parity terms)

While the U.S. has led the world in the production of scientific knowledge for decades, in terms of both quantity and quality, and the EU as a bloc (still including the UK) has outperformed the U.S. in numbers of scientific publications since 1994, China now publishes more than any other country apart from the U.S. China’s scientific priorities are shown by a particularly big increase in its share of published papers in the fields of computer sciences and engineering. While China—for now—is making modest inroads into the top-quality segment of publications, it is already on par with Japan.

This steep improvement in S&T performance has been underpinned by significant strides in science and engineering education. China is now the world’s number one producer of undergraduates with science and engineering degrees, delivering almost one quarter of first university degrees in science and engineering globally. Since 2007, the country has awarded more Ph.D. degrees in natural sciences and engineering than any other country globally.

Exhibit 2: The growing number of degrees awarded (in thousands)

Source: Bruegel, based on NSF (2016)
China’s rise in science and technology is not an accident. Successive Chinese leaderships have seen S&T as integral to economic growth and have consequently taken steps to develop the country’s S&T-related infrastructure.

Technology development and innovation figure prominently in the current thirteenth five-year plan (2016-20). China’s National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development (MLP), introduced in 2006, is an ambitious plan to transform the Chinese economy into a major center of innovation by the year 2020 and to make it the global leader in science and innovation by 2050. One of the goals of the MLP is to boost R&D expenditure to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—a target that has largely already been reached.

Global Implications

The benefits from a global science world with China as an extra strong pole will accrue to many, but some will benefit more than others. In particular, the EU and the U.S. will likely respond in different ways to the rise of China as an S&T powerhouse.

The U.S. science system has traditionally benefited from foreigners. The dominant position of the U.S. in science is based on its openness to the brightest talent of all nationalities, and this top position keeps attracting the best talents from around the world, who contribute to U.S. science, technology and economic success. Foreign talent is thus vital for U.S. science and engineering capacity. This is why the U.S. could feel threatened about the fact that the power of its S&T machine will diminish if the pool of foreign talent entering the U.S. dries up. There is no clear evidence so far, however, to justify this fear.

For the moment, the rise of China’s own capacity to produce science and engineering degrees does not seem to disconnect the U.S. from the pool of potential Chinese candidates to recruit from. With continued high attrition rates in China and high stay rates in the U.S. for foreign scientists, this open model, at least for the moment, continues to bear fruit for the U.S., even if the most important source country, China, is rapidly developing its own scientific capability.

China’s growth model for science, although aspiring to be indigenous, still involves sending out its increasingly better locally trained scholars to the best institutes in the world and reaping the benefits upon their return in later stages of their careers when they have fully developed their capabilities. All this leaves a China-U.S. connection that is virtuous, mutually beneficial for both science systems, and so far robust.

Nevertheless, concerns are mounting in the U.S. about the sustainability of its capacity for innovation and international competitiveness, driven by the more recent trend to move to a more restrictive immigration policy. This comes in addition to a reluctance to allocate public funding to support the building of S&T infrastructure.

The EU science pole is largely holding its own, based on the intensifying process of intra-EU integration. However, this process of integration is bumpy, and with the Brexit vote outcome, it is facing a major challenge. Furthermore, the EU S&T pole does not have the same deep openness to foreign scientific talent from China that the U.S. has, resulting in the absence of similarly sized flows of students and researchers.

The EU must show a stronger commitment to joining the science globalization train and subsequently ensure that European economies will benefit from it. An integrated European area for science and technology, characterized by scientific and technological excellence, is a necessary condition for this. Excellence will ensure that talented people in European research institutes and firms will be better able to absorb the new knowledge generated abroad and will be more attractive hubs for the best talent from abroad and for partners for international S&T cooperation and networks. But while reinforcing the European pole by deeper integration, it should also be more open externally.

The intra-EU mobility agenda should avoid navel gazing and be seen more as a lever for global integration. European S&T policymakers should promote and remove barriers for scientific collaboration both intra-EU and with countries outside the bloc. It should do more to attract the best foreign talent, wherever it is located in the world.

Mutual Benefit

China’s ambition to be a global leader in science and innovation by 2050 seems well within reach. The U.S. remains the favored destination for Chinese students, which has led to the creation of U.S.-China science and technology networks and connections that are mutually beneficial, enabling China to catch up and helping the U.S. to keep its position at the science frontier. The EU has much less-developed scientific connections to China than the U.S. The EU should take steps to engage more with China if it is not to miss out in the future multipolar science and technology world.

A more detailed analysis can be found here. All data in the article is from the same policy paper.

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China is the world’s new science and technology powerhouse

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