Mutual trust urged to deal with challenges in cyberspace

Remarks by Senior Captain Xu Manshu, professor at National Defense University of People's Liberation Army

The rapid development and comprehensive application of information and communication technology have created and enlarged the cyberspace, which, while promoting social efficiency and economic prosperity, poses new challenges on national and international security.

First, an arms race centered on cybertechnology has unfolded. Boosting cybertechnology has been applied in the military field rapidly and acted as a force multiplier when coupled with conventional capabilities. Cybercapabilities reinforce the strength to offend. Some countries have possessed the cybercapabilities powerful enough to undermine the reliability of the critical infrastructure and military information networks of others. What's more, traditional military powers tend to regard the strategic emerging technologies, which are mainly based on cybertechnology, as game changers, and hence strive to enlarge technological generation gap with their strategic competitors. In some degree, the arms race in the cyberspace manifests itself, first and foremost, in technological competition. Emerging technologies have become the focus of strategic competition among major powers.