'Clean networks' not possible with NSA around

In the latest update on its official WeChat account, the Ministry of National Security has listed how the United States' National Security Agency has been launching cyberattacks against not only China but also the world.

The Tailored Access Operations, which is affiliated to the NSA, intruded the server of Huawei's headquarters in 2009 and was monitoring it till it was discovered recently. It also launched tens of thousands of cyberattacks on the website of China's Northwestern Polytechnical University. Its weapons such as Bvp47, Quantum, FOXACID and Hive have already been revealed, while the US' Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which came into effect in 1978, makes it mandatory for high-tech companies in the US to let a bug inside their developed software to monitor and control it.

Had the ministry not published these details, it would have been hard to imagine that the world's only superpower was monitoring a private enterprise in China for 14 years. The US is also the only nation in the world that keeps a Cyber Command, whose job is to launch cyberwars. To realize its ambition of dominating the world, the US targets both the real and virtual worlds.

All these make people wonder what the US means by its "clean networks" plan. It seems the superpower defines "clean" as hegemony and bases its own "security" on the insecurity of others. Such a plan that carries "clean" in its name will only be self-destructive. True clean networks mean those free of piracy, free of attacks, and free of cyberbullying, yet attacks are what define the US' plan.

It's hard to imagine any country that doesn't share a common ideological ground with the US echoing that plan. Even its European allies have seen its leaders' phones being bugged. The US' ambition hurts their interests as much as China's.

A just international cyber order is indeed needed — one that is cleaned of the NSA's tricks.