Increasingly, high-ranking Chinese officials at China’s Ministry of State Security started outsourcing attacks on high-profile targets—political dissidents like the Dalai Lama, Uighur and Tibetan ethnic minorities, and high-profile defense contractors in the United States—to freelance hackers at Chinese universities and internet companies. The state identified these hackers for their skills, which often far exceeded those of their PLA counterparts. Plus, if anyone ever traced back the attacks to these individuals, Beijing could claim ignorance.
