In 2017, as US President Donald Trump began his trade war with China, another battle raged behind the scenes. The simmering, decade-long conflict over data between Chinese and US intelligence agencies was heating up, driven both by the ambitions of an increasingly confident Beijing and by the conviction of key players in the new administration in Washington that China was presenting an economic, political, and national security challenge on a scale the United States had not faced for decades – if ever.

Beijing was giving China hawks in the United States plenty of ammunition. That same year, hackers working for China’s People’s Liberation Army would mastermind a massive breach of Equifax, one of the United States’ largest credit reporting firms.

Foreign Policy