The International Institute for Strategic Studies just completed a two-year assessment of the cybercapabilities of 15 nations, and they believe that China has been exaggerating its power and is at least a decade behind the US.

https://www.westernjournal.com/new-study-finds-china-fooling-world-exaggerating-true-power/

The study ranked nations in three tiers, and the US was the only one that ranked in the top tier with “world-leading strength” in all categories. The second tier of nations with world-leading strength in some categories included China, Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Russia and the UK. The third tier of nations had strengths or potential strengths in some categories but significant weaknesses in others. It included India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, North Korea and Vietnam. For more details of those categories and which strengths and weaknesses different nations had, click the link above.

The study warned that since the early 2000s, China has been engaging in “industrial-scale espionage” to acquire cyber technology and is likely to catch up to the US by 2030. So this report offers no reasons to get complacent and every reason to shore up our cyber defenses and not trust China. We also have no reason to get complacent about the non-cyber capabilities of China when it’s engaged in an aggressive military build-up while our military leaders seem more concerned with promoting transgender rights, driving patriotic conservatives (who are traditionally the backbone of the military) out of the ranks, and planning how to defend America from its #1 threat: straight, white Trump voters.