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Topic: Cybersecurity, and Diplomacy Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas, and Asia Tags: China, Cyberwarfare, Great Power Competition, Ministry Of State Security, and United States America Won’t Sanction China’s Spy Agency After All December 9, 2025 By: Peter Suciu
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The decision to halt planned sanctions on the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s spy agency responsible for cyberwarfare operations, has been widely criticized.
Last week, the United States gave China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) an early Christmas present when it announced that it would halt planned sanctions in response to the MSS’s massive cyber-espionage campaigns against American infrastructure. The Trump administration reversed course over concerns that the sanctions would derail a vital trade deal, the Financial Times first reported.
As a result, Beijing won’t be punished, even as the MSS was suspected of carrying out the wide-ranging, years-long cyberespionage “Salk Typhoon” campaign, also known as Salt Typhoon. Chinese hackers working for the MSS successfully targeted the “unencrypted communications of top US officials,” the paper of record explained.
The Art of the Deal?
The White House, which has imposed tariffs on US partners and allies to balance perceived unfair trade practices, has opted not to punish China out of fear it would threaten potential deals for rare-earth minerals. Beijing has consistently denied that the MSS carried out any cyber espionage campaign against the United States.
“Suspending sanctions on China’s Ministry of State Security may ease short-term trade tensions, but it weakens cyber deterrence at a time when state-backed groups like Salt Typhoon are already targeting critical telecom and defense networks,” warned Carlos Creus Moreira, CEO & founder of cybersecurity providers SEALSQ and WISeKey Group.
“Delaying new export controls similarly buys temporary stability but slows efforts to protect U.S. leadership in semiconductors, AI hardware, and advanced manufacturing tools—areas central to long-term technological security,” Moreira told The National Interest.
Giving China a Pass on Cyberattacks Could Encourage More of Them
Not following through with sanctions on MSS could encourage China to continue its cyber espionage. Still, it could also suggest that the United States doesn’t take these threats as seriously as it does speedboats headed to American shores!
“Halting sanctions on the MSS in the middle of a trade negotiation signals that intelligence aggression can be priced, bargained, and waived when convenient. For the MSS, this is not a setback but an affirmation that its activities fall within a tolerable margin of geopolitical friction. Instead of creating deterrence, the decision confirms that economic leverage still outweighs security concerns in Washington’s hierarchy of priorities,” explained geopolitical analyst Irina Tsukerman, president of threat assessment firm Scarab Rising.
Moreover, such a calculation will shape how far Chinese operatives push in cyber, industrial espionage, and influence operations.
“Other adversarial services will read this as precedent,” Tsukerman told The National Interest. “If the United States treats sanctions as flexible instruments that can be suspended to preserve commercial negotiations with a powerful rival, then aggressive behavior by smaller states becomes easier to rationalize.”
Moreover, this policy may mistakenly assume that the United States can build alternative supply chains for rare earths without triggering Chinese countermeasures. That is likely optimistic as critical mineral projects face long permitting cycles, environmental constraints, and community resistance.
“China understands that its dominance derives from decades of industrial policy, and it is unlikely to let competitors mature unchallenged,” said Tsukerman. “The more Washington frames rare earth diversification as the prerequisite for geopolitical assertiveness, the more incentive Beijing has to delay or disrupt that diversification.”
Moreover, the longer sanctions remain off the table, the more normalized hostile behavior becomes, and Chinese intelligence services aren’t likely to halt their operations while Washington restructures its supply chains.
“They adapt, accelerate, and exploit the defensive posture,” Tsukerman added. “A strategy that treats rare earth dominance as a veto on counterintelligence responses risks entrenching long-term habits of caution that will persist even when the supply chain problem is solved.”
No Solace from Quantum for US Cybersecurity Experts
Another consideration is that short-term tactical restraint may come at the expense of long-term deterrence. This is also a critical time, as technology is advancing faster than ever, with artificial intelligence (AI) upending cybersecurity.
Other emerging technologies will only make matters worse.
“These decisions also highlight a deeper urgency: the next wave of cyberattacks will be quantum-enabled,” suggested Moreira. “Once adversaries deploy quantum capabilities, classical encryption used across today’s networks, IoT devices, satellites, and authentication systems becomes vulnerable. Any delay in adopting post-quantum cryptography, quantum-resistant chips, and secure key infrastructure increases exposure.”
In such a context, de-escalating trade actions may be tactically convenient, but the technological race is unforgiving. “The US and its allies must accelerate quantum-security deployment now, because the threat landscape is shifting far faster than the diplomatic one,” added Moreira.
Pentagon Also Halted Cyber Operations Against Russia
The decision not to follow through with sanctions on China follows an order by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth this spring to temporarily pause the planning of any offensive cyber operations against Russia, as a diplomatic tactic to encourage negotiations with Russia to end the Ukraine war.
That effort didn’t work, and the fighting has only intensified. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as Russia has responded to previous goodwill efforts by ignoring them.
“Pausing offensive cyber planning to encourage negotiations with Moscow reflects a misunderstanding of Russian strategic culture. The Kremlin does not interpret self-restraint as goodwill; it interprets such messaging as hesitation and weakness,” said Tsukerman.
By halting planning cycles, Washington effectively told Moscow that it was willing to reduce its own preparedness in exchange for diplomatic engagement. Such a move didn’t incentivize compromise; instead, it encouraged the belief that pressure would yield further concessions. At best, it may have been seen as appeasement.
It hasn’t brought peace to Ukraine, but even worse, it may have affected Washington’s cyberwarfare efforts. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, as Hegseth’s “warrior ethos” mentality is preparing for a 19th-century (or earlier) conflict, and he may be blind to the threat from cyber.
That is also evident in how he has ordered those speedboats sunk, while ignoring attacks that can be carried out from a distant keyboard. If the US stands down cyber efforts against Russia, the US may be weaker for it.
“The operational cost of the pause is significant,” explained Tsukerman. “Offensive cyber requires constant mapping of adversary networks, identification of vulnerabilities, and refinement of access. When that process stops, even temporarily, defenders gain time to reconfigure systems and obscure attack surfaces. The United States relinquishes valuable intelligence and loses opportunities to preposition capabilities that could serve as leverage if conflict escalates. Cyber preparedness is not something that can be turned on and off without consequence.”
The United States Isn’t Ready for a Modern Cyberwar
It is increasingly clear that the Pentagon isn’t preparing for a 21st-century war, and doesn’t understand the threat from China’s cyber espionage, nor the need to carry out similar operations against Russia. Diplomatically, the gesture misfired because Russia’s war calculus is driven by battlefield dynamics and regime security, not rhetorical signals.
“Moscow will negotiate seriously only when it believes costs exceed potential gains. A voluntary pause in US cyber pressure does not alter that equation,” said Tsukerman.
Instead, it reinforces the notion that the United States is more sensitive to escalation than Russia is, and that Washington will curtail its own tools in the hope of coaxing Moscow toward dialogue.
There is also a broader institutional danger: treating cyber capabilities as a bargaining chip rather than an essential pillar of national defense. That in turn could undermine the culture of readiness within cyber commands.
“Personnel who train for persistent engagement expect political leadership to understand that deterrence depends on preparation, not symbolic restraint,” said Tsukerman. “A pause sends the opposite message and risks damaging morale and recruiting in a field that already faces intense competition for talent.”
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.
Image: Shutterstock / DC Studio.
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Источник: nationalinterest.org