When the Times asked Carlin and James Comey, then FBI director, whether the Chinese might retaliate by indicting Americans who hack on behalf of the US government, they said that, naturally, they could not discuss any offensive US cyber operations. But the difference, they both stressed, was that the United States didn’t steal secrets from China and give them to corporations like Google and Microsoft and Apple. They were right, but it was a very American answer. It is a distinction that the Chinese have never bought into: To them, economic security and national security are a seamless web, and
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