China-U.S. Strategic Competition in the Cyber Domain
The strategic competition between Washington and Beijing continues to shape the international security environment and subsequently pull the strings of regional and sub-regional security structures in the 21st century. The contemporary global security landscape finds its roots in the traditional patterns of operations but is driven by non-traditional components of security. This is because the dawn of the 21st century coincided with technological revolutions that not only affected the international civil standard operating procedures but also revamped the approach of militaries. Being at the crossroads of conventional and unconventional aspects, cyberspace strategic competition between the United States (U.S.) and China also started in the last decade of the 20th century when the two countries neither confronted each other formally labeled cyberspace as a war-worthy domain. However, recognizing each other’s cyberspace capabilities, as well as those of other countries, they started formalizing cyberspace warfare strategies and policy guidelines. It was in the early 2000s when China and the U.S. highlighted the shift in their military postures and doctrinal changes in which cyberspace emerged as a zone of competition along with other military domains. Initially, cyberspace capabilities were used by existing military structures as force multipliers and to support traditional military campaigns. As technology progressed and cyber warfare capabilities matured, cyber warfare capabilities evolved into independent and joint components for military operations. After both countries recognized cyberspace as the 5th warfighting domain, cyber warfare’s
