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ustin Rowlatt investigates the spread of Chinese influence around the planet and asks what the world will be like if China overtakes America as the world's economic superpower. In the first of two films, he embarks on a journey across Southern Africa to chart the extraordinary phenomenon of Chinese migration to Africa, and the huge influence of China on the development of the continent. While many in the West view Africa as a land of poverty, to the Chinese it is seen as an almost limitless business opportunity. From Angola to Tanzania, Justin meets the fearless Chinese entrepreneurs who have travelled thousands of miles to set up businesses.

China's cyberwar against U.S. is too vital to ignore

China is waging a quiet, mostly invisible but massive cyberwar against the United States

obtaining the ability to sabotage vital infrastructure.

That's called social engineering and it's a widely used technique, especially by Chinese hackers.

ou say Chinese hackers and there's been a lot of reports about cyber espionage stemming from China. What's going on here? GJELTEN: You know, Lynn, all the cyber security people we talked to say there's just a ton of cyber espionage coming out of China these days. Hackers are stealing technological secrets, trade secrets, computer code, design plans, you name it. The security people say it's like a vacuum cleaner approach. They just suck up everything they find.

But what's behind this is that China wants to catch up to the west. Now, they don't have the business environment to support innovation. You don't see the Chinese equivalent of companies like IBM or Google or Apple popping up there, so rather than develop their own ideas and technology, they just steal it. That's the background here. At least, that's what we hear from U.S. intelligence officials and security people. NEARY: And the Chinese government's not acknowledging any role in this attack on the chamber of commerce? GJELTEN: They say there's no evidence, but cyber security people who have investigated other intrusions blamed on China say it's pretty easy to tie them back there and it's hard to see how the government would not be involved in some way, given the way China works. Chamber officials say they have no doubt that this intrusion did come from China.

Google reported in January 2010 that its computer infrastructure in China had been hit by a "highly sophisticated" attack that resulted in the theft of company secrets. Google also said it had evidence that a goal of the attackers was to gain access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists.

At the time, the company did not blame the Chinese government for the intrusion. But shortly thereafter, a U.S. diplomat in Beijing confidentially cabled Washington that "a well placed contact" was claiming the Google attack had been "coordinated" by the Chinese government "at the Politburo Standing Committee level."

China publicly for hacking American industries

but Chinese hackers have even broken into and stolen plans from American furniture manufacturers.

demands immediate congressional attention to examine any national security implications and to clarify present and future control issues before the deal receives regulatory approval.

For example, U.S. national policy makers have worked to make sure sensitive military and defense technology and production remain with American companies.

After 9/11, concerns grew that foreign ownership of U.S. infrastructure could increase our vulnerability to terrorist attacks. One example is the heated debate triggered by the 2006 purchase of a company that ran U.S. ports by the United Arab Emirates-owned company Dubai Ports World. (Dubai Ports eventually sold its interests to a U.S. company.) More recently, globalization of the nuclear industry and the weak U.S. economy have attracted significant levels of foreign investment in the U.S. nuclear industry

The Atomic Energy Act prohibits the NRC from issuing a license to any entity that the Commission believes is “owned, controlled or dominated by an alien, a foreign corporation or foreign government.” Broadly speaking, the foreign ownership prohibition protects the “common defense and security” of the United States, even though this may prevent some nations from participating in U.S. nuclear joint ventures.

the interest of foreign companies in buying U.S. critical infrastructure assets; that interest is now growing again, and the Obama administration is grappling with how to balance the promotion of commerce with the bolstering of security

The issue is coming back to the fore as foreign investors once again try to buy American industrial assets. The Obama administration has thus been forced to grapple with how to protect national security while promoting economic recovery.

The New York Times’s Eric Lipton wrote last month that in early December, the administration had threatened to block the proposed takeover by the Chinese government of a tiny Nevada gold mining company, according to executives for the company,

A couple of years ago Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a 75-year lease for 157 miles of the Indiana Toll Road for $3.8 billion, thus supposedly funding the State’s transportation needs for ten years

They saw Daniels’ move as giving away the State’s birthright

When the leases are to foreign organizations the backlash is particularly harsh. For example, in Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has privatized some Texas highways, was presented with a two-year moratorium upon new projects by the relatively conservative State Legislature. That throws a wrench in Perry’s plans for the Trans-Texas Highway, which is supposed to be a multi-lane facility, with high-speed trains in the middle, to carry especially trucks from Mexico all the way to Kansas City. The public is angry. They see Perry as giving away Texas sovereignty.

Office of Investment Security   Page ContentCommittee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) CFIUS is an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person (“covered transactions”), in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.  CFIUS operates pursuant to section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended by the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA) (section 721) and as implemented by Executive Order 11858, as amended, and regulations at 31 C.F.R. Part 800.  The CFIUS process has been the subject of significant reforms over the past several years.  These include numerous improvements in internal CFIUS procedures, enactment of FINSA in July 2007, amendment of Executive Order 11858 in January 2008, revision of the CFIUS regulations in November 2008, and publication of guidance on CFIUS’s national security considerations in December 2008. Further information about each of these reforms is available via the links to the right.