In personal relationships this is especially troublesome as the medium of exchange, unlike business using money, is emotion and what is left of trust in a relationship. That makes the wishing of failure in addition to winning the conflict especially toxic and even potentially dangerous. As one divorcee had on her license plate holder "Happiness is seeing your Ex-on a milk carton," the damaging aspects of this dynamic is dangerous in interpersonal relationships.
It is far more common in business where salaries, sales, and bonuses are seen as a direct reflection of the value of the managers involved, and the loss of these is seen as even greater victory for the person in the conflict.
Case: The Great Wall and the Firewall - 50 marks (2 to 4 pages)
On more than one occasion China has been accused of attempting to break into government computers in Australia, New Zealand and other countries. What is the source of the conflicts between China and other countries? Can the Chinese government be trusted? Why? How do you think that will these conflicts will be resolved?
China is unique in that its intelligence operations are relied on not only for defense-related information and analysis, but also for economic and industry-specific knowledge as well. The source of conflicts China has with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., the United Kingdom and many other westernized nations who have significant trading relationships with them is the vision of Chinese government leaders to eventually dominate, not collaborate, in these trading relationships. Clearly the intention is to gain enough defense-related intelligence is the foundation of their efforts, as exhibited by the recent admission by U.S. Department of Defense officials that the Pentagons' computer systems show the Chinese military had attempted to hack into them (Financial Times 2007). In addition it is estimates that China's intelligence network relies heavily on businesses to act as intelligence-gathering fronts, with a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report in 2005 estimating 500 such businesses exist in Canada alone, and a few thousand throughout the U.S. The intentions of China on spying on the U.S. is clearly for military superiority, while the spying efforts in Canada are for both the stealing of both technological and trade secrets so China can gain the competitive advantage in trading relationships and defense. In the case of spying in Australia and New Zealand, the same holds true, with the latter country being of particular interest to the Chinese as it has become known as a world leader in software development. China is one of the laggards globally in that area, hence their interest. China is also looking for how to dominate industry-specific trade strategies...
Their stance on one-child-per-family and the rigorous enforcement of this law, the lack of free speech and imprisonment of bloggers who speak out against them, and the lack of product safety standards in place despite the Chinese nation now being one of the most productive from a manufacturing standpoint in the world, all point to a strategy of duality that is not worthy of trust. On the one hand the Chinese government welcomes manufacturers who want to gain access to their cheap labor and in certain parts of the country, well-defined infrastructure (as is the case in Shanghai where broadband Internet access is widely available) and on the other, the concentration on tightly controlling the social-political systems and values of its people makes for a contradiction. Their rise as a global manufacturing leader and the heavy reliance on foreign direct investment (FDI) fuels this contradiction and leads to an even higher level of reliance on intelligence regarding both military and commercial strategies of entire nations they see as competitors is continually anteing up the race of information and competitive insight. China's espionage strategies span from the small business fronts used as "landing zones" in western nations for spies to both steal technology and trade secrets to the use of high technology hacking to gain access into military information. In short, China is one of the world's greatest threats to security outside of radical Islamic terrorism.
Just as the issue of China's use of espionage to attain their industrial, military, and technological goals has escalated over decades of conflict, there is no simple or elegant solution to the problem. The recognition that continued surveillance of all forms of China's sabotage, and the continual investment in research and development to development new technologies for detecting China's spying and espionage efforts are critical. There is no real resolution to this conflict, merely a continual need to be vigilant and stay at least at parity with the threat of the Chinese government using all forms of espionage in global commercial and military advantage.
References
Financial Times (2007) - Chinese Military hacked into Pentagon. Demetri Sevastopulo. Washington D.C. Published: September 3, 2007. Accessed from the Internet on September 19, 2007 from location:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9dba9ba2-5a3b-11dc-9bcd-0000779fd2ac.html
