foreignpolicy--2020-12-23--Tech Giants Are Giving China a Vital Edge in Espionage

This series , based on interviews with over three dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and national security officials , tells the story of China ’ s assault on U.S. personal data over the last decade—and its consequences .
Part 1 : China Used Stolen Data to Expose CIA Operatives in Africa and Europe After China discovered extensive U.S. networks inside its own government , it struck back with a series of hacks that allowed it to expose CIA operatives in Africa and Europe—while upping domestic security at home to protect against further U.S. infiltration .
Part 2 : Beijing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in China As Xi Jinping consolidated his power through purges at home , the loss of U.S. sources left the Obama administration struggling to grasp what was happening in China .
Meanwhile , intelligence agencies carried out enormous thefts of U.S. data—while the United States strived to do the same in China .
Beijing was giving China hawks in the United States plenty of ammunition .
That same year , hackers working for China ’ s People ’ s Liberation Army would mastermind a massive breach of Equifax , one of the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The military-linked hackers absconded with a dizzying amount of personal data , including Social Security numbers , home addresses , birth dates , driver ’ s license numbers , and credit card information .
Roughly 145 million Americans had their personal data exposed by the hack .
The Trump administration ’ s China policies were probably the most antagonistic of any U.S. presidency since the height of the Cold War in the 1960s .
Still , even within the administration , key China advisors were divided .
“ In the first year [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Security Council , we were arguing and debating the direction [ of China policy ] , ” recalled Robert Spalding , who served as the council ’ s senior director for strategic planning until early 2018 .
The environment shifted in 2018 , Spalding said , after the advent of the administration ’ s National Security Strategy , its decision to escalate the trade war , and the departure of Susan Thornton , the State Department ’ s top Asia policy official , who Spalding says stymied attempts by the FBI and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aggressive tack on China-related prosecutions .
( Thornton declined to comment . )
But for some critics , the administration ’ s shifting rationales undermined its credibility on China and technology issues .
A number of Trump administration officials emphasized the national security threats posed by Chinese tech giants , while others—most notably Trump himself—intimated that these companies ’ access to U.S. goods and markets were bargaining chips in the ongoing trade war .
ZTE , a major Chinese telecommunications firm , was almost driven out of business after the administration , citing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working with it—until Trump granted the company a reprieve , seemingly as part of trade-related negotiations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping .
“ President Xi of China , and I , are working together to give massive Chinese phone company , ZTE , a way to get back into business , fast .
Too many jobs in China lost .
Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done !
” Trump tweeted in May 2018 .
A full-court press by the administration on Huawei , the world ’ s largest telecom equipment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ floated dropping an extradition request against a Huawei executive arrested in Canada for sanctions evasion in exchange for trade relief .
Administration officials also shifted from hinting about the company ’ s current malicious activities on behalf of China ’ s spy services to emphasizing the threat it might pose in the future , once it had monopolized much of the world ’ s telecom infrastructure .
This was a fair worry .
Chinese industry has always been , to some extent , subordinated or intertwined with the party-state , although the origins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The People ’ s Liberation Army was a dominant player in Chinese firms for decades , owning businesses from hospitals to condom factories ; the Chinese Communist Party has itself repeatedly attempted to force military divestiture to fight corruption .
But the embrace between China ’ s intelligence services and Chinese businesses has gotten tighter , U.S. officials say .
In 2017 , under Xi ’ s intensifying authoritarianism , Beijing promulgated a new national intelligence law that compels Chinese businesses to work with Chinese intelligence and security agencies whenever they are requested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what was pretty much what was going on for many years before , though corruption had tempered it ” previously , a former senior CIA official said .
Beijing ’ s access to , and ability to sift through , troves of pilfered and otherwise obtained data “ gives [ China ] vast opportunities to target people in foreign governments , private industries , and other sectors around the world—in order to collect additional information they want , such as research , technology , trade secrets , or classified information , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ top counterintelligence official .
“ Chinese technology companies play a key role in processing this bulk data and making it useful for China ’ s intelligence services , ” he said .
In what amounts to intelligence tasking , China ’ s spy services order private Chinese companies with big-data analytics capabilities to “ condition ” —that is , work up or process—massive sets of information , including from hacks like the massive breach of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management ( OPM ) , that have intelligence value , according to current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promptly flows back to Chinese state entities , they say .
“ Just imagine on any given day , if NSA and CIA are collecting information , say , on the [ Chinese military ] , and we could bring back seven , eight , 10 , 15 petabytes of data , give it to Google or Amazon or Microsoft , and say , ‘ Hey , condition this on the weekend .
We want all these analytics ; get it back to us next week.
’ That ’ s what they do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Baidu .
We don ’ t have that , ” a current senior intelligence official said .
By co-opting Chinese companies ’ data-processing capabilities , U.S. officials say , Beijing ’ s spy agencies can rapidly sift through massive amounts of information to find key nuggets of intelligence value—for example , to help identify an undercover CIA operative by cross-checking real-time travel intelligence with other sources gathered by China ’ s Ministry of State Security ( MSS ) .
And by outsourcing these expensive data-processing functions to private companies , Chinese intelligence agencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a scale they don ’ t possess themselves or don ’ t want to build in-house , officials say .
Alibaba and Baidu did not respond to multiple requests for comment .
The cooperation hasn ’ t always been frictionless .
“ The private companies are hostages to it , ” a former counterintelligence executive said .
“ Arguments ensue.
” Sometimes , U.S. intelligence officials would learn about “ pissed-off employees ” at Chinese companies upset about “ doing extra work ” on behalf of Chinese intelligence , the former executive said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ All the major Chinese firms have benefited from knowing , at various points , how to not be too big to fail the party , ” the former senior CIA official said .
The companies ’ at-times begrudging cooperation with Beijing ’ s intelligence agencies is still , in the end , a subordination to them .
Many Chinese tech firms “ probably want to be normal tech companies , and don ’ t want to deal with these ideological expectations , or the national security expectations , ” said Elsa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security .
“ Most Chinese tech companies are not that dissimilar to their counterparts in Silicon Valley .
The difference is they are trying to operate within a system where there are incentives and expectations to cultivate closer relations with the government , or the potential for retribution should they step out of line on some front.
” Chinese companies walk a tricky line when talking about such ties .
Publicly , and especially in English , they deny any links to Beijing ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which has faced a flood of accusations about these links , implausibly claims to be owned by its employees .
At home , though , the same companies repeatedly avow their loyalty to the party and willingness to assist the security services .
Some connections are more deep-seated .
For instance , the former senior CIA official said that , based on “ high-confidence reporting , ” the CIA concluded that the Chinese tech giant Tencent , which operates the ultrapopular WeChat messaging service , received funding from the Ministry of State @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The organization , China ’ s chief civilian intelligence agency , provided a “ seed investment , ” this former official said , “ when they were trying to build out the Great Firewall and the monitoring technology.
” “ This is entirely false , ” Tencent said .
“ Our history as an entrepreneurial start-up is well known , funded first by our founders and then IDG and PCCW , and we ’ ve been a public company with transparent ownership for over 16 years.
” Cooperation picked up “ when WeChat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to them regarding monitoring things and shutting them down when necessary , ” said the former senior CIA official .
“ It ’ s not that Tencent or [ its founder ] Pony Ma are dancing to the tune of what the MSS says , but if at any point China ’ s security services need assistance , they are providing it.
” “ Tencent , like any other company operating in China , complies with [ Chinese ] law in a transparent way , ” Tencent said .
“ The allegations beyond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by China ’ s spy agencies has benefited mainland companies for many years , with data hacked or otherwise stolen by China ’ s intelligence services flowing toward the private sector to give Chinese firms a leg up against the competition .
While intellectual property theft is common—and often driven by the private sector—in China , the state has long played a key role in industrial espionage .
America ’ s firms , with their hefty government and military contracts , became juicy targets in the online era .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some flow of information from Chinese intelligence agencies to private sector entities , ” said Sean Kanuck , who served as the U.S. national intelligence officer for cyber issues from 2011 to 2016 .
As far back as 2000 , according to Steve Ryan , the former deputy director of the National Security Agency ’ s Threat Operations Center , U.S. officials observed Chinese cyberoperations aimed at piercing U.S. defense contractors—something that was occurring “ on a regular basis ” by around 2006 onward , Ryan said .
The Chinese were “ just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in certain areas , in certain technologies , ” he recalled .
“ And then we would just watch them form a company that would then put that U.S.-side interest out of business .
We saw that time and again.
” These cyber-incursions became ubiquitous , with Chinese state hackers successfully compromising the networks of contractors to the Pentagon ’ s U.S. Transportation Command 20 times in a single year , according to a 2014 Senate Armed Service Committee report .
In 2018 , Chinese operatives successfully hacked a U.S. Navy contractor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ development of submarine missiles .
American officials stewed as China rolled out new fighter jets and other weapons systems copied from stolen U.S. designs .
Using their own technical spying capabilities , U.S. intelligence officials also observed hacked information being transferred from data centers controlled by Chinese intelligence agencies to quasi-private , quasi-public Chinese defense businesses .
Years ago , though , this purloined data would remain with Chinese companies for “ competitive uses , ” said a former senior NSA official .
It was like “ a gift to be used effectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sector partners , this person recalled .
This earlier model of cooperation , however , was unidirectional , with data passed from China ’ s spies to its own industrial base , as part of Beijing ’ s race for technological parity with Washington .
But the use of private Chinese conglomerates to provide the know-how and data-processing firepower for China ’ s intelligence apparatus represents a new stage in this evolution , U.S. officials say .
“ The companies they are using are portraying themselves as large , legitimate , multinationals that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the former Trump-era national security official .
“ These are not simply tiny little .
.
.
defense contractors working inside China .
They are major multinationals with footprints all over the world.
” China ’ s “ use of their private sector entities furthers not only their intelligence gathering , but processing , ” said Ryan , the former top NSA official .
Key legal restrictions and cultural norms mean American spy agencies can not induce U.S. firms to sift through the fruits of its own cyberspying ; they have had to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , U.S. officials say .
And they can not , for example , commandeer private U.S. companies ’ data-processing power to help them create a composite picture of what the Chinese know about , say , U.S. government employees based on Beijing ’ s prior hacks .
But synthesizing these parallel databases has been a priority for U.S. officials , who have worked to mirror image at least some of what they believe the Chinese possess , according to three current and former senior officials .
This can be a laborious process .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” the data from the OPM breach , the current senior intelligence official said .
But when U.S. officials eventually analyzed all this data , the picture that emerged about what , in fact , the Chinese knew was not a pretty one .
U.S. intelligence reporting on the subject is “ sickening to your stomach , ” the senior intelligence official said .
“ Look at Equifax .
Add Anthem , the financial stuff , Marriott , there ’ s nothing they don ’ t know about us , ” said the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of breaches of U.S. firms perpetrated by Chinese hackers .
“ We are constantly trying to mimic what they do know ” about Americans who might be targets for Chinese spies , they said .
“ And then we marry that up with intelligence that we get about what their interests are .
Then we go back and give defensive briefs ” to these potential targets , the current senior official said .
“ That ’ s kind of the new business model we have right now.
” China might be testing out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well , Trump-era officials fear .
During the first few years of the Trump administration , conversations “ bounced around ” at the National Security Council and within U.S. intelligence agencies on how China ’ s hunt for security through data—through , for instance , synthesizing data from Marriot , Equifax , OPM , and other hacked organizations to identify U.S. spies—may have converged with its larger economic objectives , according to the former Trump-era national security official .
The thinking “ is still relatively immature ” in that area , this source @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be leveraging stolen personal information to attempt to undermine the American economy , through putting companies under financial stress in strategically important business sectors , even if these companies don ’ t perform classified work .
These datasets might also be used to benefit Chinese businesses in other ways , officials say .
“ If I ’ m looking to expand a hotel chain or expand into the international travel market , having United Airlines , Marriot , or American Airlines customer records ” could provide Chinese firms clear potential advantages “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said Kanuck , the former top U.S. cyber-focused intelligence official .
Likewise , Kanuck said , the hack of Anthem could give Chinese firms obvious insights into the U.S. health care market .
The massive data tranches could also be used as inputs to build better algorithms for artificial intelligence programs , officials say .
While some of this weaponized data could be derived from hacks , Trump-era officials also worried that attempted investments in U.S. firms by some Chinese businesses was aimed at gaining control over personal data in U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back to the Chinese intelligence services .
The Trump administration ’ s increased use of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States process—in which an interagency group reviews foreign purchases for national security threats—to block takeovers of some U.S. companies by Chinese firms was partially driven by these fears , officials say .
Navigating the U.S.-China relationship will be the most momentous foreign-policy challenge for the incoming Biden administration .
But in the vanishingly small world of bipartisan officialdom , the integrated threat posed by Beijing may represent the last great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Biden administration ’ s China strategy seems likely to be a difference in degree from its predecessor , not in kind .
For American national security officials , deep worries about the Chinese government ’ s relationships with its world-spanning private sector companies—including telecom giants like Huawei , massive e-commerce platforms like Alibaba , and social media behemoths like ByteDance , which operates the TikTok platform—will increasingly influence the U.S.-Beijing relationship .
China has already succeeded in isolating one out of every five humans on the planet from the global data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mirror image , U.S. policymakers are instituting more stringent controls aimed at segregating Americans ’ data from Chinese companies—and , by extension , Beijing ’ s formidable intelligence apparatus .
Driven by fears over internal instability and external threats to its rule , the Chinese Communist Party has determined that data security is tantamount to regime security .
But this strategy creates some internal tensions for Beijing .
“ The Chinese cybersecurity system today requires backdoors into every single company and individual in China , ” said a former senior intelligence analyst .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that these [ backdoors ] could enable attackers and may decrease the cybersecurity of the companies.
” This is a trade-off China ’ s leaders seem willing to make , at least for now—even though these policies may catalyze an economic decoupling with China ’ s most important trading partner , and even though this decoupling might itself drive domestic instability .
Meanwhile , the bear hug between Chinese intelligence and Chinese industry continues to squeeze together ever more tightly .
After all , said the former senior intelligence analyst , “ this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies.
” Editor ’ s Note : This is the third in a three-part series .
The first part covers how the data wars began between the two nations after CIA networks were uncovered in China .
The second part covers how U.S. sources in China went dark at a critical moment during Xi ’ s rise , while Beijing ’ s hacking continued .

In 2017, as U.S. President Donald Trump began his trade war with China, another battle raged behind the scenes. The simmering, decadelong conflict over data between Chinese and U.S. intelligence agencies was heating up, driven both by the ambitions of an increasingly confident Beijing and by the conviction of key players in the new administration in Washington that China was presenting an economic, political, and national security challenge on a scale the United States had not faced for decades—if ever.
In 2017, as U.S. President Donald Trump began his trade war with China, another battle raged behind the scenes. The simmering, decadelong conflict over data between Chinese and U.S. intelligence agencies was heating up, driven both by the ambitions of an increasingly confident Beijing and by the conviction of key players in the new administration in Washington that China was presenting an economic, political, and national security challenge on a scale the United States had not faced for decades—if ever.
This series, based on interviews with over three dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and national security officials, tells the story of China’s assault on U.S. personal data over the last decade—and its consequences. Part 1: China Used Stolen Data to Expose CIA Operatives in Africa and Europe
After China discovered extensive U.S. networks inside its own government, it struck back with a series of hacks that allowed it to expose CIA operatives in Africa and Europe—while upping domestic security at home to protect against further U.S. infiltration. Part 2: Beijing Ransacked Data as U.S. Sources Went Dark in China
As Xi Jinping consolidated his power through purges at home, the loss of U.S. sources left the Obama administration struggling to grasp what was happening in China. Meanwhile, intelligence agencies carried out enormous thefts of U.S. data—while the United States strived to do the same in China.
Beijing was giving China hawks in the United States plenty of ammunition. That same year, hackers working for China’s People’s Liberation Army would mastermind a massive breach of Equifax, one of the United States’ largest credit reporting firms. The military-linked hackers absconded with a dizzying amount of personal data, including Social Security numbers, home addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and credit card information. Roughly 145 million Americans had their personal data exposed by the hack.
The Trump administration’s China policies were probably the most antagonistic of any U.S. presidency since the height of the Cold War in the 1960s. Still, even within the administration, key China advisors were divided. “In the first year [of the Trump era] at the National Security Council, we were arguing and debating the direction [of China policy],” recalled Robert Spalding, who served as the council’s senior director for strategic planning until early 2018. The environment shifted in 2018, Spalding said, after the advent of the administration’s National Security Strategy, its decision to escalate the trade war, and the departure of Susan Thornton, the State Department’s top Asia policy official, who Spalding says stymied attempts by the FBI and Department of Justice to take a more aggressive tack on China-related prosecutions. (Thornton declined to comment.)
But for some critics, the administration’s shifting rationales undermined its credibility on China and technology issues. A number of Trump administration officials emphasized the national security threats posed by Chinese tech giants, while others—most notably Trump himself—intimated that these companies’ access to U.S. goods and markets were bargaining chips in the ongoing trade war. ZTE, a major Chinese telecommunications firm, was almost driven out of business after the administration, citing national security, banned American suppliers from working with it—until Trump granted the company a reprieve, seemingly as part of trade-related negotiations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!” Trump tweeted in May 2018.
A full-court press by the administration on Huawei, the world’s largest telecom equipment firm, lost momentum after the president floated dropping an extradition request against a Huawei executive arrested in Canada for sanctions evasion in exchange for trade relief. Administration officials also shifted from hinting about the company’s current malicious activities on behalf of China’s spy services to emphasizing the threat it might pose in the future, once it had monopolized much of the world’s telecom infrastructure.
This was a fair worry. Chinese industry has always been, to some extent, subordinated or intertwined with the party-state, although the origins of these ties are often murky. The People’s Liberation Army was a dominant player in Chinese firms for decades, owning businesses from hospitals to condom factories; the Chinese Communist Party has itself repeatedly attempted to force military divestiture to fight corruption.
But the embrace between China’s intelligence services and Chinese businesses has gotten tighter, U.S. officials say. In 2017, under Xi’s intensifying authoritarianism, Beijing promulgated a new national intelligence law that compels Chinese businesses to work with Chinese intelligence and security agencies whenever they are requested to do so—a move that codified “what was pretty much what was going on for many years before, though corruption had tempered it” previously, a former senior CIA official said.
In the final years of the Obama administration, national security officials had directed U.S. spy agencies to step up their intelligence collection on the relationship between the Chinese state and China’s private industrial behemoths. By the advent of the Trump era, this effort had borne fruit, with the U.S. intelligence community piecing together voluminous evidence on coordination—including back-and-forth data transfers—between ostensibly private Chinese companies and that country’s intelligence services, according to current and former U.S. officials. There was evidence of close public-private cooperation occurring on “a daily basis,” according to a former Trump-era national security official. “Those commercial entities are the commercial wing of the party,” the source said. “They of course cooperate with intelligence services to achieve the party’s goals.”
“THOSE COMMERCIAL ENTITIES ARE THE COMMERCIAL WING OF THE PARTY,” THE SOURCE SAID. “THEY OF COURSE COOPERATE WITH INTELLIGENCE SERVICES TO ACHIEVE THE PARTY’S GOALS.”
Beijing’s access to, and ability to sift through, troves of pilfered and otherwise obtained data “gives [China] vast opportunities to target people in foreign governments, private industries, and other sectors around the world—in order to collect additional information they want, such as research, technology, trade secrets, or classified information,” said William Evanina, the United States’ top counterintelligence official. “Chinese technology companies play a key role in processing this bulk data and making it useful for China’s intelligence services,” he said.
In what amounts to intelligence tasking, China’s spy services order private Chinese companies with big-data analytics capabilities to “condition”—that is, work up or process—massive sets of information, including from hacks like the massive breach of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), that have intelligence value, according to current and former officials. This data then promptly flows back to Chinese state entities, they say.
“Just imagine on any given day, if NSA and CIA are collecting information, say, on the [Chinese military], and we could bring back seven, eight, 10, 15 petabytes of data, give it to Google or Amazon or Microsoft, and say, ‘Hey, condition this on the weekend. We want all these analytics; get it back to us next week.’ That’s what they do. They have Alibaba and they have Baidu. We don’t have that,” a current senior intelligence official said.
Market Value and Reach of Key Chinese Tech Companies
By co-opting Chinese companies’ data-processing capabilities, U.S. officials say, Beijing’s spy agencies can rapidly sift through massive amounts of information to find key nuggets of intelligence value—for example, to help identify an undercover CIA operative by cross-checking real-time travel intelligence with other sources gathered by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). And by outsourcing these expensive data-processing functions to private companies, Chinese intelligence agencies can also exploit these commercial capabilities at a scale they don’t possess themselves or don’t want to build in-house, officials say. Alibaba and Baidu did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The cooperation hasn’t always been frictionless. “The private companies are hostages to it,” a former counterintelligence executive said. “Arguments ensue.” Sometimes, U.S. intelligence officials would learn about “pissed-off employees” at Chinese companies upset about “doing extra work” on behalf of Chinese intelligence, the former executive said. But they were obligated to comply. “All the major Chinese firms have benefited from knowing, at various points, how to not be too big to fail the party,” the former senior CIA official said. The companies’ at-times begrudging cooperation with Beijing’s intelligence agencies is still, in the end, a subordination to them.
Many Chinese tech firms “probably want to be normal tech companies, and don’t want to deal with these ideological expectations, or the national security expectations,” said Elsa Kania, a China expert and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Most Chinese tech companies are not that dissimilar to their counterparts in Silicon Valley. The difference is they are trying to operate within a system where there are incentives and expectations to cultivate closer relations with the government, or the potential for retribution should they step out of line on some front.”
Chinese companies walk a tricky line when talking about such ties. Publicly, and especially in English, they deny any links to Beijing’s intelligence or military apparatus. Huawei, which has faced a flood of accusations about these links, implausibly claims to be owned by its employees. At home, though, the same companies repeatedly avow their loyalty to the party and willingness to assist the security services.
Some connections are more deep-seated. For instance, the former senior CIA official said that, based on “high-confidence reporting,” the CIA concluded that the Chinese tech giant Tencent, which operates the ultrapopular WeChat messaging service, received funding from the Ministry of State Security early on in its foundation. The organization, China’s chief civilian intelligence agency, provided a “seed investment,” this former official said, “when they were trying to build out the Great Firewall and the monitoring technology.”
“This is entirely false,” Tencent said. “Our history as an entrepreneurial start-up is well known, funded first by our founders and then IDG and PCCW, and we’ve been a public company with transparent ownership for over 16 years.”
Cooperation picked up “when WeChat became a thing; the MSS came to them regarding monitoring things and shutting them down when necessary,” said the former senior CIA official. “It’s not that Tencent or [its founder] Pony Ma are dancing to the tune of what the MSS says, but if at any point China’s security services need assistance, they are providing it.”
“Tencent, like any other company operating in China, complies with [Chinese] law in a transparent way,” Tencent said. “The allegations beyond this are completely false.”
China's President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump review the Chinese honor guards during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017.
Economic espionage by China’s spy agencies has benefited mainland companies for many years, with data hacked or otherwise stolen by China’s intelligence services flowing toward the private sector to give Chinese firms a leg up against the competition. While intellectual property theft is common—and often driven by the private sector—in China, the state has long played a key role in industrial espionage. America’s firms, with their hefty government and military contracts, became juicy targets in the online era. “It’s well understood that you’ve had some flow of information from Chinese intelligence agencies to private sector entities,” said Sean Kanuck, who served as the U.S. national intelligence officer for cyber issues from 2011 to 2016.
As far back as 2000, according to Steve Ryan, the former deputy director of the National Security Agency’s Threat Operations Center, U.S. officials observed Chinese cyberoperations aimed at piercing U.S. defense contractors—something that was occurring “on a regular basis” by around 2006 onward, Ryan said. The Chinese were “just robbing the defense industrial base blind, in certain areas, in certain technologies,” he recalled. “And then we would just watch them form a company that would then put that U.S.-side interest out of business. We saw that time and again.” These cyber-incursions became ubiquitous, with Chinese state hackers successfully compromising the networks of contractors to the Pentagon’s U.S. Transportation Command 20 times in a single year, according to a 2014 Senate Armed Service Committee report. In 2018, Chinese operatives successfully hacked a U.S. Navy contractor, pilfering highly sensitive information related to the development of submarine missiles.
U.S. INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS ALSO OBSERVED HACKED INFORMATION BEING TRANSFERRED FROM DATA CENTERS CONTROLLED BY CHINESE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES TO QUASI-PRIVATE, QUASI-PUBLIC CHINESE DEFENSE BUSINESSES.
American officials stewed as China rolled out new fighter jets and other weapons systems copied from stolen U.S. designs. Using their own technical spying capabilities, U.S. intelligence officials also observed hacked information being transferred from data centers controlled by Chinese intelligence agencies to quasi-private, quasi-public Chinese defense businesses. Years ago, though, this purloined data would remain with Chinese companies for “competitive uses,” said a former senior NSA official. It was like “a gift to be used effectively” from Chinese intelligence to its defense sector partners, this person recalled. This earlier model of cooperation, however, was unidirectional, with data passed from China’s spies to its own industrial base, as part of Beijing’s race for technological parity with Washington.
But the use of private Chinese conglomerates to provide the know-how and data-processing firepower for China’s intelligence apparatus represents a new stage in this evolution, U.S. officials say. “The companies they are using are portraying themselves as large, legitimate, multinationals that have footprints across jurisdictions,” said the former Trump-era national security official. “These are not simply tiny little . . . defense contractors working inside China. They are major multinationals with footprints all over the world.” China’s “use of their private sector entities furthers not only their intelligence gathering, but processing,” said Ryan, the former top NSA official.
Key legal restrictions and cultural norms mean American spy agencies cannot induce U.S. firms to sift through the fruits of its own cyberspying; they have had to build these data analysis capabilities for themselves, U.S. officials say. And they cannot, for example, commandeer private U.S. companies’ data-processing power to help them create a composite picture of what the Chinese know about, say, U.S. government employees based on Beijing’s prior hacks. But synthesizing these parallel databases has been a priority for U.S. officials, who have worked to mirror image at least some of what they believe the Chinese possess, according to three current and former senior officials. This can be a laborious process. “It took us forever to condition” the data from the OPM breach, the current senior intelligence official said.
But when U.S. officials eventually analyzed all this data, the picture that emerged about what, in fact, the Chinese knew was not a pretty one. U.S. intelligence reporting on the subject is “sickening to your stomach,” the senior intelligence official said.
“Look at Equifax. Add Anthem, the financial stuff, Marriott, there’s nothing they don’t know about us,” said the current official, referring to a series of breaches of U.S. firms perpetrated by Chinese hackers. “We are constantly trying to mimic what they do know” about Americans who might be targets for Chinese spies, they said. “And then we marry that up with intelligence that we get about what their interests are. Then we go back and give defensive briefs” to these potential targets, the current senior official said. “That’s kind of the new business model we have right now.”
China might be testing out a “new business model” as well, Trump-era officials fear. During the first few years of the Trump administration, conversations “bounced around” at the National Security Council and within U.S. intelligence agencies on how China’s hunt for security through data—through, for instance, synthesizing data from Marriot, Equifax, OPM, and other hacked organizations to identify U.S. spies—may have converged with its larger economic objectives, according to the former Trump-era national security official. The thinking “is still relatively immature” in that area, this source said. But U.S. officials believe China may be leveraging stolen personal information to attempt to undermine the American economy, through putting companies under financial stress in strategically important business sectors, even if these companies don’t perform classified work.
These datasets might also be used to benefit Chinese businesses in other ways, officials say. “If I’m looking to expand a hotel chain or expand into the international travel market, having United Airlines, Marriot, or American Airlines customer records” could provide Chinese firms clear potential advantages “for due diligence and market research purposes,” said Kanuck, the former top U.S. cyber-focused intelligence official. Likewise, Kanuck said, the hack of Anthem could give Chinese firms obvious insights into the U.S. health care market. The massive data tranches could also be used as inputs to build better algorithms for artificial intelligence programs, officials say.
While some of this weaponized data could be derived from hacks, Trump-era officials also worried that attempted investments in U.S. firms by some Chinese businesses was aimed at gaining control over personal data in U.S. companies’ possession—which could then be passed back to the Chinese intelligence services. The Trump administration’s increased use of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States process—in which an interagency group reviews foreign purchases for national security threats—to block takeovers of some U.S. companies by Chinese firms was partially driven by these fears, officials say.
Then Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping invites then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to view an honor guard during a welcome ceremony inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Aug. 18, 2011. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
Navigating the U.S.-China relationship will be the most momentous foreign-policy challenge for the incoming Biden administration. But in the vanishingly small world of bipartisan officialdom, the integrated threat posed by Beijing may represent the last great unifying issue in the national security sphere. The Biden administration’s China strategy seems likely to be a difference in degree from its predecessor, not in kind.
For American national security officials, deep worries about the Chinese government’s relationships with its world-spanning private sector companies—including telecom giants like Huawei, massive e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, and social media behemoths like ByteDance, which operates the TikTok platform—will increasingly influence the U.S.-Beijing relationship. China has already succeeded in isolating one out of every five humans on the planet from the global data ecosystem; now, in a defensive mirror image, U.S. policymakers are instituting more stringent controls aimed at segregating Americans’ data from Chinese companies—and, by extension, Beijing’s formidable intelligence apparatus.
DRIVEN BY FEARS OVER INTERNAL INSTABILITY AND EXTERNAL THREATS TO ITS RULE, THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY HAS DETERMINED THAT DATA SECURITY IS TANTAMOUNT TO REGIME SECURITY.
Driven by fears over internal instability and external threats to its rule, the Chinese Communist Party has determined that data security is tantamount to regime security. But this strategy creates some internal tensions for Beijing. “The Chinese cybersecurity system today requires backdoors into every single company and individual in China,” said a former senior intelligence analyst. “And they are willing to admit that these [backdoors] could enable attackers and may decrease the cybersecurity of the companies.”
This is a trade-off China’s leaders seem willing to make, at least for now—even though these policies may catalyze an economic decoupling with China’s most important trading partner, and even though this decoupling might itself drive domestic instability. Meanwhile, the bear hug between Chinese intelligence and Chinese industry continues to squeeze together ever more tightly. After all, said the former senior intelligence analyst, “this is a country with omnipresence in its companies.”
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a three-part series. The first part covers how the data wars began between the two nations after CIA networks were uncovered in China. The second part covers how U.S. sources in China went dark at a critical moment during Xi’s rise, while Beijing’s hacking continued.


foreignpolicy--2020-12-24--The Arab Spring Changed Everything—in Europe

A decade after the Arab Spring , little has improved for those who stood up against Middle Eastern autocrats and demanded a better life .
Most of the countries that erupted in protests and subsequently in violence are still ruled by despotic regimes under which oppression and corruption are routine while economic hardship has continued unabated .
Europe , however , is a different continent than it was before 2011—and for reasons directly relating to the failed revolutions next door .
For one , Europe is split .
The United Kingdom ’ s vote to leave the European Union was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the refugee crisis triggered by Syria ’ s uprising , and its subsequent civil war .
Populist political parties across Europe , leveraging growing fears of Islam and extremism , have been on the rise for years .
European foreign policy has already palpably changed , with countries increasingly embracing the new dictators who have emerged on the continent ’ s southern borders , without even the fig leaf of liberal moralism they once evoked .
In sum , the events of the Arab Spring have not only failed to make Arab countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones far less so .
In 2015 , Germany ’ s Chancellor Angela Merkel found it reprehensible to deny shelter to Syrians whose homes and entire cities had been pulverized in a mad bombing spree by Bashar al-Assad ’ s regime .
She opened Germany ’ s doors to the refugees , and almost a million walked in .
That decision was hailed by many as the right thing to do .
But its implications were far-reaching .
Emma Sky , a senior fellow at Yale University ’ s Jackson Institute , said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the British decision to leave the European Union , and she recalled how the populists fanned insecurities to their advantage .
“ Nigel Farage , the leader of the far-right UK Independence Party , was filmed standing in front of a massive poster of Syrian refugees at the Slovenia-Croatia border .
The implication was clear : Unless the U.K. left the European Union and took back control of its borders , the refugees would flood into Britain , ” Sky said .
“ There was continuous media coverage of clashes at ‘ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the French police and migrants desperate to reach the U.K. ” As hundreds of thousands took boat rides , marched , and spent months and years in cramped camps to reach safety , the populists—hitherto relegated to the margins in European politics—saw their chance .
They preyed on the fears of many Europeans that their jobs might be given to refugees or that the presence of people from distinctly different cultures—and predominantly one religion , Islam—may alter their way of life .
The antagonism toward refugees emanated from deeply embedded Islamophobia in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria , and a spate of terror attacks carried out by the group ’ s members or supporters in Europe , further aided the populists .
Immigration exacerbated fears of extremist attacks and changed the face of European politics , perhaps forever .
Daily conversations at coffee tables in Europe , even in cities considered centers of liberal ideas such as Paris and Berlin , are often xenophobic .
The polity is broadly divided between those who feel morally inclined to help the refugees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burden ; between those who strenuously differentiate between Islam and Islamic extremism , and those who are openly Islamophobic .
The last decade has also tested Europe ’ s self-professed foreign-policy values .
It advocates liberty and democracy but increasingly lacks the will to promote them abroad .
Many Arab youths who looked up to Europe are disenchanted and increasingly see the European governments as self-serving .
The European giants of France and Germany are conducting business with Egypt ’ s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi , an autocrat who simply replaced the Islamist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted .
Earlier this month , France rolled out a red carpet for Sisi and embellished him with its highest state award , the Legion d ’ Honneur .
Sisi ’ s brutal repression of political opposition , Islamists , and liberals had little bearing on France ’ s decision .
Activists say 60,000 political prisoners are languishing inside Egypt ’ s prisons , the press is muzzled regularly , and civil society activists are terrified .
Julien Barnes-Dacey , the director of the Middle East and North Africa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Relations , said the Arab Spring presented an opportunity to reshape developments on the ground , but Europe failed to deliver .
“ The European focus increasingly narrowed in on the security and migration challenges with decreasing self-belief in any ability to push the region ’ s political order in a more positive direction , ” he said .
“ Ten years on from the uprisings some Europeans are now re-embracing the notion of authoritarian stability , as symbolized by the increasing embrace of President Sisi in Egypt.
” In Libya , France @ @ @ @ @ @ @ al-Qaddafi .
But as the power vacuum led to warfare among different stakeholders—Islamists , extremists , tribes , Qaddafi ’ s son Saif Qaddafi , and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar—Libya catapulted into chaos .
Post Qaddafi , Europe was expected to manage the fallout and lead Libya toward a democratic political transition .
It remained ineffective mainly because it had neither interest nor plans to stabilize the country ; it simply looked the other way .
The conflict now displays broader regional rivalries between Turkey and Qatar , which back the internationally recognized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia , which see the political Islamists as their nemesis and Haftar as the man who can give them a fight .
Europeans ostensibly support a U.N.-mediated peace process , but some of their policies are prolonging the civil war .
Germany , for instance , has reportedly sold arms to both warring parties in the Libyan conflict but , like Italy , it doesn ’ t back either politically .
France , however , is accused of tacitly arming Haftar ’ s forces .
French @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Haftar to contain immigrants and extremists among them who are trying to get to Europe .
French analysts have said that domestic instability in France is linked to Islamist militancy in certain African nations in the Sahara-Sahel belt that were former French colonies .
Europe had a similar transactional relationship with Qaddafi as it is now building with Sisi and Haftar .
In 2010 Qaddafi had demanded 5 billion euro a year from European countries if they wanted him to stop illegal African immigration and avoid , he reportedly said , a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oppression that eventually led to rebellion , a civil war , and mass immigration to Europe .
Dictators across the Mediterranean have time again used the threat of opening the floodgates of economic migrants , and extremists , as blackmail to Europe and presented themselves as indispensable to secure its borders .
The Arab Spring displayed that carrying on as usual with dictatorial regimes was a defeatist policy for Europe .
And yet that is exactly the approach many European countries seem to be once again adopting .
Joost Hiltermann is the International @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Middle East .
He said Europe misunderstood the nature of the Arab Spring from the beginning as a movement about democracy .
“ The people in the squares were not primarily agitating for democracy , but Europeans wanted them to be .
The protesters wanted dramatically better governance and , failing that , the overthrow of unresponsive and corrupt regimes .
When the protests resulted in violent and chaotic outcomes , the Europeans became more cautious , blaming Islam for the absence of democratic progress , and tightening border controls against refugees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were jihadists trying to get to Europe , ” Hiltermann said .
“ In the end , European governments re-embraced the stability paradigm ( supporting autocratic regimes—the devil you know ) that had given rise to the popular uprisings in the first place.
” On Syria , Europe is officially united and has made provision of reconstruction funds contingent on political transformation on the lines of U.N .
Resolution 2254 , which calls for the inclusion of rebels in Syria ’ s politics , the release of political prisoners , and accountability for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the populists in Italy and several other countries advocate resuming ties with Assad ’ s regime .
While Italy wants to liaise with Assad ’ s intelligence services on extremists who may have crossed its borders , Germany ’ s major opposition party Alternative for Germany asserts that Syrians are safe under Assad and it ’ s time for refugees to leave .
Instead of regime change , Europe has toned down its expectations to a change in regime behavior .
Olivier Guitta , the head of a security firm that offers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Middle East , said Europe ’ s refusal to intervene militarily in Syria was the cardinal sin that pushed Muslim Westerners into the arms of the Islamic State .
“ The rationale for convincing young Westerners [ to join the Islamic State ] was simple : Your government is supposedly defending human rights but when it comes to saving Muslim lives , it does not care .
We need your help , come join us , ” Guitta said .
“ The European security services tell me that the level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the heyday of Islamic State in 2015 that saw the major attacks in Europe.
” However , other experts cited Libya ’ s collapse and disagreed that military action in Syria was the right course of action .
The Syrian battlefield was also bursting with all sorts of groups , including the jihadis and not just the moderates of the Free Syrian Army .
Moreover , democratic and liberal protesters were a disorganized force .
The Baath regime ruled with an iron fist and never allowed any meaningful political opposition to emerge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Europe , and the United States , to carry out a definitive military operation against the Assad regime .
For all its failings , Europe has sent billions of dollars in aid and been steadfast in keeping alive some of the civil society movements that emanated out of the Arab Spring , even if the torchbearers are in exile .
“ The real lesson seems to be that meaningful reform needs a longer-term vision of change , ” said Barnes-Dacey of the European Council on Foreign Relations , “ one more focused on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rug from beneath the feet of incumbent orders .
”

A decade after the Arab Spring, little has improved for those who stood up against Middle Eastern autocrats and demanded a better life. Most of the countries that erupted in protests and subsequently in violence are still ruled by despotic regimes under which oppression and corruption are routine while economic hardship has continued unabated.
A decade after the Arab Spring, little has improved for those who stood up against Middle Eastern autocrats and demanded a better life. Most of the countries that erupted in protests and subsequently in violence are still ruled by despotic regimes under which oppression and corruption are routine while economic hardship has continued unabated.
Europe, however, is a different continent than it was before 2011—and for reasons directly relating to the failed revolutions next door. For one, Europe is split. The United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union was, in part, a reaction to the refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s uprising, and its subsequent civil war. Populist political parties across Europe, leveraging growing fears of Islam and extremism, have been on the rise for years.
European foreign policy has already palpably changed, with countries increasingly embracing the new dictators who have emerged on the continent’s southern borders, without even the fig leaf of liberal moralism they once evoked. In sum, the events of the Arab Spring have not only failed to make Arab countries more stable—they’ve also made European ones far less so.
In 2015, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel found it reprehensible to deny shelter to Syrians whose homes and entire cities had been pulverized in a mad bombing spree by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. She opened Germany’s doors to the refugees, and almost a million walked in. That decision was hailed by many as the right thing to do. But its implications were far-reaching.
Emma Sky, a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute, said limiting immigration was a key driver of the British decision to leave the European Union, and she recalled how the populists fanned insecurities to their advantage. “Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right UK Independence Party, was filmed standing in front of a massive poster of Syrian refugees at the Slovenia-Croatia border. The implication was clear: Unless the U.K. left the European Union and took back control of its borders, the refugees would flood into Britain,” Sky said. “There was continuous media coverage of clashes at ‘the Jungle’—the makeshift camp in Calais—between the French police and migrants desperate to reach the U.K.”
As hundreds of thousands took boat rides, marched, and spent months and years in cramped camps to reach safety, the populists—hitherto relegated to the margins in European politics—saw their chance. They preyed on the fears of many Europeans that their jobs might be given to refugees or that the presence of people from distinctly different cultures—and predominantly one religion, Islam—may alter their way of life. The antagonism toward refugees emanated from deeply embedded Islamophobia in the minds of many Europeans. However, the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and a spate of terror attacks carried out by the group’s members or supporters in Europe, further aided the populists. Immigration exacerbated fears of extremist attacks and changed the face of European politics, perhaps forever.
Daily conversations at coffee tables in Europe, even in cities considered centers of liberal ideas such as Paris and Berlin, are often xenophobic. The polity is broadly divided between those who feel morally inclined to help the refugees and those who see them as a burden; between those who strenuously differentiate between Islam and Islamic extremism, and those who are openly Islamophobic.
The last decade has also tested Europe’s self-professed foreign-policy values. It advocates liberty and democracy but increasingly lacks the will to promote them abroad. Many Arab youths who looked up to Europe are disenchanted and increasingly see the European governments as self-serving.
The European giants of France and Germany are conducting business with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, an autocrat who simply replaced the Islamist president who formed a government after longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted. Earlier this month, France rolled out a red carpet for Sisi and embellished him with its highest state award, the Legion d’Honneur. Sisi’s brutal repression of political opposition, Islamists, and liberals had little bearing on France’s decision. Activists say 60,000 political prisoners are languishing inside Egypt’s prisons, the press is muzzled regularly, and civil society activists are terrified.
Julien Barnes-Dacey, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the Arab Spring presented an opportunity to reshape developments on the ground, but Europe failed to deliver. “The European focus increasingly narrowed in on the security and migration challenges with decreasing self-belief in any ability to push the region’s political order in a more positive direction,” he said. “Ten years on from the uprisings some Europeans are now re-embracing the notion of authoritarian stability, as symbolized by the increasing embrace of President Sisi in Egypt.”
In Libya, France and the U.K.-led NATO intervention toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi. But as the power vacuum led to warfare among different stakeholders—Islamists, extremists, tribes, Qaddafi’s son Saif Qaddafi, and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar—Libya catapulted into chaos. Post Qaddafi, Europe was expected to manage the fallout and lead Libya toward a democratic political transition. It remained ineffective mainly because it had neither interest nor plans to stabilize the country; it simply looked the other way. The conflict now displays broader regional rivalries between Turkey and Qatar, which back the internationally recognized government also supported by political Islamists, and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which see the political Islamists as their nemesis and Haftar as the man who can give them a fight.
Europeans ostensibly support a U.N.-mediated peace process, but some of their policies are prolonging the civil war. Germany, for instance, has reportedly sold arms to both warring parties in the Libyan conflict but, like Italy, it doesn’t back either politically. France, however, is accused of tacitly arming Haftar’s forces. French President Emmanuel Macron is betting on strongman Haftar to contain immigrants and extremists among them who are trying to get to Europe. French analysts have said that domestic instability in France is linked to Islamist militancy in certain African nations in the Sahara-Sahel belt that were former French colonies.
Europe had a similar transactional relationship with Qaddafi as it is now building with Sisi and Haftar. In 2010 Qaddafi had demanded 5 billion euro a year from European countries if they wanted him to stop illegal African immigration and avoid, he reportedly said, a “black Europe.” But it was his oppression that eventually led to rebellion, a civil war, and mass immigration to Europe.
Dictators across the Mediterranean have time again used the threat of opening the floodgates of economic migrants, and extremists, as blackmail to Europe and presented themselves as indispensable to secure its borders. The Arab Spring displayed that carrying on as usual with dictatorial regimes was a defeatist policy for Europe. And yet that is exactly the approach many European countries seem to be once again adopting.
Joost Hiltermann is the International Crisis Group’s program director for the Middle East. He said Europe misunderstood the nature of the Arab Spring from the beginning as a movement about democracy. “The people in the squares were not primarily agitating for democracy, but Europeans wanted them to be. The protesters wanted dramatically better governance and, failing that, the overthrow of unresponsive and corrupt regimes. When the protests resulted in violent and chaotic outcomes, the Europeans became more cautious, blaming Islam for the absence of democratic progress, and tightening border controls against refugees and migrants, among whom they suspected were jihadists trying to get to Europe,” Hiltermann said.
“In the end, European governments re-embraced the stability paradigm (supporting autocratic regimes—the devil you know) that had given rise to the popular uprisings in the first place.”
On Syria, Europe is officially united and has made provision of reconstruction funds contingent on political transformation on the lines of U.N. Resolution 2254, which calls for the inclusion of rebels in Syria’s politics, the release of political prisoners, and accountability for war crimes. But behind closed doors, the populists in Italy and several other countries advocate resuming ties with Assad’s regime. While Italy wants to liaise with Assad’s intelligence services on extremists who may have crossed its borders, Germany’s major opposition party Alternative for Germany asserts that Syrians are safe under Assad and it’s time for refugees to leave. Instead of regime change, Europe has toned down its expectations to a change in regime behavior.
Olivier Guitta, the head of a security firm that offers advice to governments in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, said Europe’s refusal to intervene militarily in Syria was the cardinal sin that pushed Muslim Westerners into the arms of the Islamic State. “The rationale for convincing young Westerners [to join the Islamic State] was simple: Your government is supposedly defending human rights but when it comes to saving Muslim lives, it does not care. We need your help, come join us,” Guitta said. “The European security services tell me that the level of the threat today is higher than at the heyday of Islamic State in 2015 that saw the major attacks in Europe.”
However, other experts cited Libya’s collapse and disagreed that military action in Syria was the right course of action. The Syrian battlefield was also bursting with all sorts of groups, including the jihadis and not just the moderates of the Free Syrian Army. Moreover, democratic and liberal protesters were a disorganized force. The Baath regime ruled with an iron fist and never allowed any meaningful political opposition to emerge. Ground realities made it harder for Europe, and the United States, to carry out a definitive military operation against the Assad regime.
For all its failings, Europe has sent billions of dollars in aid and been steadfast in keeping alive some of the civil society movements that emanated out of the Arab Spring, even if the torchbearers are in exile.
“The real lesson seems to be that meaningful reform needs a longer-term vision of change,” said Barnes-Dacey of the European Council on Foreign Relations, “one more focused on cementing bottom-up transformation than suddenly pulling the rug from beneath the feet of incumbent orders.”


foreignpolicy--2020-12-24--In 2020, Putin Raised the Stakes at Home and Abroad

In 2020 , Putin Raised the Stakes at Home and Abroad But not all is sewn up on the home front , as months of protests in the far-eastern city of Khabarovsk show .
Putin and his minions dealt with the biggest opposition threat frontally , poisoning presidential contender Alexei Navalny with a new variant of the nerve agent Novichok .
And the skullduggery went abroad : Russian mercenaries fought in Libya , Russia was accused of paying bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan , and this month it was revealed that the U.S. government was thoroughly hacked and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will have plenty to worry about come January , whether the raging pandemic and a weak economy or a deeply polarized electorate .
But , like the last three—or seven , or nine—presidents before him , he ’ ll have Russia on his mind , too .
But please , experts say , no more resets .
Here are five of Foreign Policy ’ s top Russia stories this year .
by Yevgenia Albats , Catherine Belton , Irina Borogan , Susan Glasser , Vladimir Kara-Murza , Andrea Kendall-Taylor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Olga Oliker , Andrei Soldatov , and Angela Stent , May 7 This year marked 20 years since Putin was first sworn in as president of Russia .
Foreign Policy asked 11 leading scholars , journalists , and former diplomats to look back on how the Russian leader has changed his country as one of the world ’ s most powerful leaders may become one of the world ’ s most longest-serving .
“ Contrary to Putin ’ s rhetoric of ‘ restoring Russia ’ s greatness , ’ Russia is increasingly isolated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its future positive economic development , ” wrote Vladimir Milov , a Russian opposition politician and economic advisor to opposition leader Navalny .
2 .
Normal Is Over for Russia ’ s Hinterland The July arrest of Sergei Furgal , the governor of Russia ’ s far-east region of Khabarovsk , sparked months of protests .
Furgal was accused of being involved in four murders in the mid-2000s , but the move was widely interpreted as a bid to rein in the popular governor who beat the Kremlin ’ s candidate in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While protests in the Russian capital tend to garner international headlines , unrest in the Russian regions over environmental concerns , economic woes , and local politics could present a bigger challenge to the Kremlin in the future .
3 .
How Russia Tried to Weaponize Charlie Sheen Last year , the veteran Russian political operative Maxim Shugaley was arrested in Libya and accused of trying to meddle in the country ’ s already messy conflict .
His detention was the subject of a determined and increasingly bizarre campaign to secure his release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parliament in Russia , two feature films , an advertorial in the Washington Post , a mixed martial arts tournament , and Cameo videos by actors Charlie Sheen , Vinnie Jones , and Dolph Lundgren .
“ The effort offers a glimpse into Russian overseas interference activities , in which celebrity pleas exist on the same plane as MiGs and mercenary activity from the Wagner group in Libya , where the U.S. military has warned that Russia is looking to establish a foothold , ” Jones and Mackinnon wrote .
4 .
No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fourth U.S. president to hold office during Putin ’ s rule .
Each of his predecessors sought to chart their own course in relations with Moscow .
George W. Bush looked into Putin ’ s eyes and got a “ sense of his soul.
” Barack Obama started with a reset and ended with a finger in Putin ’ s chest over election interference .
Then there were four years of President Donald Trump ’ s curious—and still unexplained—affinity for the Russian leader .
No more , argues Kurt Volker , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ negotiations .
“ Instead of a reset , the West needs the patience to apply consistent and steady pressure against Russian aggression , and to support those in Russia and in neighboring states who seek freedom , democracy , and security .
For once , it is time for Russia , not the West , to rethink its policy , ” Volker wrote .
5 .
How Putin and the KGB Took Control of Russia—and Duped The West If Bush , Obama , and Trump all got Putin wrong , it might be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Putin was coming from—or how he was trained .
The former KGB agent who famously described the fall of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest geopolitical catastrophes of the 20th century didn ’ t just rant and rail—he fought back .
Catherine Belton , a former Financial Times Moscow correspondent , served up a meticulous expose of how Putin rose from obscurity to become Russia ’ s longest-serving ruler since Stalin .
“ They have forged a system , Belton argues , that uses the KGB playbook to keep a tight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billions of dollars in money flows , and spread Russian influence deep into the West , ” Amos wrote in his review .

Russia began 2020 in a haze of uncertainty, as President Vladimir Putin faced constitutionally imposed term limits that could have curtailed the longest Kremlin reign since Joseph Stalin. In January, after the prime minister and cabinet resigned en masse, Putin named a little-known tax inspector as prime minister—neatly pruning any political threat. By July, a referendum secured Putin the right to another two terms as president once his current time is up in 2024.
Russia began 2020 in a haze of uncertainty, as President Vladimir Putin faced constitutionally imposed term limits that could have curtailed the longest Kremlin reign since Joseph Stalin. In January, after the prime minister and cabinet resigned en masse, Putin named a little-known tax inspector as prime minister—neatly pruning any political threat. By July, a referendum secured Putin the right to another two terms as president once his current time is up in 2024.
But not all is sewn up on the home front, as months of protests in the far-eastern city of Khabarovsk show. Putin and his minions dealt with the biggest opposition threat frontally, poisoning presidential contender Alexei Navalny with a new variant of the nerve agent Novichok. And the skullduggery went abroad: Russian mercenaries fought in Libya, Russia was accused of paying bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and this month it was revealed that the U.S. government was thoroughly hacked and ransacked, allegedly by Russian cyberspies.
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will have plenty to worry about come January, whether the raging pandemic and a weak economy or a deeply polarized electorate. But, like the last three—or seven, or nine—presidents before him, he’ll have Russia on his mind, too. But please, experts say, no more resets.
Here are five of Foreign Policy’s top Russia stories this year.
by Yevgenia Albats, Catherine Belton, Irina Borogan, Susan Glasser, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Vladimir Milov, Michael McFaul, Olga Oliker, Andrei Soldatov, and Angela Stent, May 7
This year marked 20 years since Putin was first sworn in as president of Russia. Foreign Policy asked 11 leading scholars, journalists, and former diplomats to look back on how the Russian leader has changed his country as one of the world’s most powerful leaders may become one of the world’s most longest-serving. “Contrary to Putin’s rhetoric of ‘restoring Russia’s greatness,’ Russia is increasingly isolated and faces unprecedented international sanctions that exclude its future positive economic development,” wrote Vladimir Milov, a Russian opposition politician and economic advisor to opposition leader Navalny.
by Sophie Pinkham, Aug. 7
The July arrest of Sergei Furgal, the governor of Russia’s far-east region of Khabarovsk, sparked months of protests. Furgal was accused of being involved in four murders in the mid-2000s, but the move was widely interpreted as a bid to rein in the popular governor who beat the Kremlin’s candidate in a surprise upset in elections in 2018. While protests in the Russian capital tend to garner international headlines, unrest in the Russian regions over environmental concerns, economic woes, and local politics could present a bigger challenge to the Kremlin in the future.
Russian honor guards march during a military parade at Red Square in Moscow on Nov. 7, 2018.
by Dean Sterling Jones and Amy Mackinnon, Sept. 23
Last year, the veteran Russian political operative Maxim Shugaley was arrested in Libya and accused of trying to meddle in the country’s already messy conflict. His detention was the subject of a determined and increasingly bizarre campaign to secure his release that included his election to a regional parliament in Russia, two feature films, an advertorial in the Washington Post, a mixed martial arts tournament, and Cameo videos by actors Charlie Sheen, Vinnie Jones, and Dolph Lundgren. “The effort offers a glimpse into Russian overseas interference activities, in which celebrity pleas exist on the same plane as MiGs and mercenary activity from the Wagner group in Libya, where the U.S. military has warned that Russia is looking to establish a foothold,” Jones and Mackinnon wrote.
by Kurt Volker, Aug. 11
Biden will be the fourth U.S. president to hold office during Putin’s rule. Each of his predecessors sought to chart their own course in relations with Moscow. George W. Bush looked into Putin’s eyes and got a “sense of his soul.” Barack Obama started with a reset and ended with a finger in Putin’s chest over election interference. Then there were four years of President Donald Trump’s curious—and still unexplained—affinity for the Russian leader.
No more, argues Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special representative for Ukraine peace negotiations. “Instead of a reset, the West needs the patience to apply consistent and steady pressure against Russian aggression, and to support those in Russia and in neighboring states who seek freedom, democracy, and security. For once, it is time for Russia, not the West, to rethink its policy,” Volker wrote.
by Howard Amos, June 27
If Bush, Obama, and Trump all got Putin wrong, it might be because they didn’t realize where Putin was coming from—or how he was trained. The former KGB agent who famously described the fall of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest geopolitical catastrophes of the 20th century didn’t just rant and rail—he fought back. Catherine Belton, a former Financial Times Moscow correspondent, served up a meticulous expose of how Putin rose from obscurity to become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Stalin.
“They have forged a system, Belton argues, that uses the KGB playbook to keep a tight grip on power, manipulate hundreds of billions of dollars in money flows, and spread Russian influence deep into the West,” Amos wrote in his review.


foreignpolicy--2020-12-24--The True Meaning of Christmas Movies Is a Cozy American Worldview

It ’ s hard to imagine Christmas without Christmas movies , whether they ’ re old favorites like It ’ s a Wonderful Life or A Charlie Brown Christmas , edgier picks like Love Actually or Die Hard , or—especially—the kinds playing on loop on the Hallmark Channel during its Countdown to Christmas .
Only a Grinch could fail to innocently enjoy Christmas movies .
As a political scientist , however , it ’ s my professional curse to be unable to enjoy anything without analyzing it to death .
And Christmas movies have an odd habit of showing how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world .
For example , the world that Christmas movies often present has little to do with the one that U.S. policy actually produces—or even with the dynamic , globalized sector that actually makes those movies .
They ’ re products of a global cultural industry that contrives to reflect how at least some Americans—especially those with the most spending power—want the world to be .
And the world that Americans imagine they want every Christmas is one that slips further away with every year .
Yet it ’ s wrong to dismiss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certain conventions , but so do Marvel blockbusters .
And men have a nasty habit of denigrating anything that women like—from romance novels to fashion to Lifetime movies—as frippery .
Besides , the audience for these movies is way bigger than you ’ d expect .
The Hallmark Channel , which has done a lot to define the genre , charts as one of the top-rated entertainment cable channels ( more viewers than the Food Network ! )
—and it ’ s routinely one of the most popular cable networks among women in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ viewers will tune in to watch at least one of the channel ’ s Christmas movies—and even more for similar films on Netflix , Lifetime , and other platforms .
To win the holiday viewing season , Hallmark , Lifetime , Netflix , and the rest have to produce Christmas movies at a frenetic pace .
Over the past several years , Lifetime has released more than 100 Christmas movies , while Hallmark premiered 40 in 2020 alone .
For comparison , Warner Bros. releases about 20 movies in a non-pandemic year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cheaper than major studio productions .
Estimates for the cost of a typical Christmas movie range from about $ 2 million to $ 10 million .
Even a single episode of The Crown or The Mandalorian might cost as much as several of these movies .
Netflix or Lifetime can commission dozens of Christmas movies for the same cost as a single mid-budget Hollywood release .
But keeping costs low is only half of the equation .
The other half is making money .
Cable channels like Lifetime and Hallmark earn the bulk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means they need to be able to promise advertisers they will deliver audiences in a predictable demographic ( say , women age 25-54 ) .
A major programming event , like wall-to-wall Christmas movies , locks down those audiences .
The studios that make these films , like the Motion Picture Corporation of America or MarVista Entertainment , are relatively anonymous .
They aim to produce not Oscar winners but reliable content .
That reliability has to extend to the vision of the world presented .
Real America is a politically polarized place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Christmas America , there are no partisan political divides , and almost everyone is white .
The big-city lawyer who finds love when she goes home for the holidays never has a heated argument about a woman ’ s right to choose with her new small-town fireman beau .
Even Operation Christmas Drop , which features an ambitious congressional staffer sent by her boss to inspect an Air Force base in Guam to see if it can be closed down , ends with the member of Congress choosing to save the base in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ district .
Reindeer will fly over the Capitol dome before that happens .
Yet the military and the hardships it places on families are recurring themes .
If a parent is absent , there ’ s a good chance we ’ ll learn that they ’ ve been deployed—but rarely to where .
In Christmas movies , there ’ s always a military but never a war .
Even in overtly military-themed movies like USS Christmas , there ’ s only the slightest hint that the military is intended for use against adversaries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the kid-glove treatment it receives , is the most realistic way that Christmas movies depict U.S. politics .
The military remains , by a long shot , the most trusted institution in the United States—a rare point of bipartisan consensus .
But partisanship divides Americans ’ view of whether countries like Russia are friend or foe .
In Christmas movies as in reality , Americans agree only that they need a military , not why .
If a standard complaint about Americans ’ staggering ignorance about the world is that “ Africa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevalence of princes suggests that Americans also need to be reminded that most European countries are republics .
They ’ re modern versions of the “ Ruritanian romance , ” the 19th-century swashbuckling novels set in imagined monarchies—though with less adventure and more garlands .
The default assumption of Christmas movies is that Americans ’ classless , democratic nature clashes with stuffy upper-crust Europeans ’ reserve .
Reality is different .
Rankings like the Varieties of Democracy index routinely show that the United States substantially lags other rich countries in the quality of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up the economic class ladder face a steeper climb than Europeans .
The plucky American woman shows the reserved prince that he should care for his people , almost always using orphans as a stand-in .
How there are so many orphanages in prosperous principalities is never explained , but there ’ s always another one— “ It ’ s a world tour of orphans , ” one character exclaims in A Princess Switch : Switched Again .
Of course , rates of child poverty in the United States are higher than those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign ” countries are never exactly foreign , either .
Everyone speaks English , usually with a Received Pronunciation accent—convenient for monoglot Americans who don ’ t have to even learn a new language to join the ruling family of a foreign land .
Christmas movie royal families don ’ t just reign like British or Swedish monarchs—they really rule .
If the films accurately depict the military ’ s place in U.S. society , they also suggest that , for many Americans , the world beyond U.S. borders doesn ’ t meaningfully @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true , as with the geography of the Netflix Holiday Movie Universe .
An infamous map in A Christmas Prince : The Royal Baby shows the countries of Aldovia and Belgravia not as postage-stamp pseudo-Liechtensteins but as immense realms comprising the whole of Eastern Europe between them , presumably the result of an alternative history where Queen Victoria ’ s grandchildren managed to stay on the thrones of Eastern Europe and keep speaking English at home , as Tsar Nicholas II of Russia did with his wife .
With a couple of exceptions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genre can accommodate the rest of the world only as a fairy tale says something important about how Americans imagine the world .
Bluntly—they don ’ t .
When Americans want to relax and focus on what really matters , there ’ s no place like home .
Many—possibly most—Christmas movies are filmed outside the United States .
Most of these all-American fantasies are made in Canada .
Five holiday movies filmed in British Columbia in July 2019 alone .
Canada offers not only landscapes and cities that can double for American locales @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exchange rates .
Other countries have copied Canada .
The University of Arizona professor Chris Lukinbeal writes that Romania—the original Ruritania—began to attract Hollywood ’ s notice after the film Cold Mountain filmed there in the mid-2000s .
Back then , the greatest advantage Romania offered was savings on “ below-the-line ” costs , like extras and technicians , making the location cost-competitive even after Canadian tax incentives .
An increasingly sophisticated film industry grew up to support international productions .
Combined with an ample supply of castles and palaces , it became @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movies , such as the 2017 Netflix hit A Christmas Prince .
In 2018 , the Romanian government created Europe ’ s most generous subsidy program for film , a fund that could cover up to 45 percent of eligible expenses to a maximum of $ 15 million .
That same year , several Christmas movies were filmed in Romania , including a Christmas Prince sequel , The Princess Switch , and Christmas at the Palace .
In 2019 , news reports indicated that Romania ’ s Castel Film Studio applied for nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) in rebates for production on A Christmas Prince : The Royal Baby under this program .
As in most globalized industries , though , tax incentives attract , but they can not retain .
By 2020 , production of A Princess Switch : Switched Again had moved from Romania to Scotland .
( The third entry in the series will also film in Scotland ; perhaps Netflix could honor the history of real-world European principalities and global capital by calling it A Princess Switch : Tax Haven . )
What Christmas movies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to live in isn ’ t the world they ’ ve made .
Most Americans live in suburbs , but holiday movies exist in a world of small towns and big cities that feel like small towns .
Most Americans work in low-status service jobs , but holiday movies promise that fulfilling work is just one true meaning of Christmas away .
Giant corporations loyal only to profits dominate the real economy , but Christmas movie economies run on small businesses deeply embedded in their societies .
The genre also reflects a country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burdens of global leadership than elite discourse suggests .
Holiday movies that show families adjusting to the toll of foreign wars also suggest a desire to stop bearing those costs .
Far from yearning to lead the international community , the audiences for Christmas movies mostly want to be happy at home while foreigners do whatever it is they ’ re doing .
Should anything too terrible happen , the military will always be there to protect us anyhow .
More happily , it is a country that ’ s open to some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ representation in these movies have worked .
Black , LGBT , and even non-Christian Americans have an increasing number of holiday movies that show their stories , even if those stories so far are mostly just different colors of frosting on the same cookie recipe .
The Christmas movie version of the American dream can be stretched to accommodate everyone—in fiction .
The America that Americans—or at least , a substantial number of them—want isn ’ t one of threats of civil war and global ambitions .
It ’ s a cozy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Christmas—even if the presents were made at reasonable cost , overseas .

It’s hard to imagine Christmas without Christmas movies, whether they’re old favorites like It’s a Wonderful Life or A Charlie Brown Christmas, edgier picks like Love Actually or Die Hard, or—especially—the kinds playing on loop on the Hallmark Channel during its Countdown to Christmas.
It’s hard to imagine Christmas without Christmas movies, whether they’re old favorites like It’s a Wonderful Life or A Charlie Brown Christmas, edgier picks like Love Actually or Die Hard, or—especially—the kinds playing on loop on the Hallmark Channel during its Countdown to Christmas.
Only a Grinch could fail to innocently enjoy Christmas movies. As a political scientist, however, it’s my professional curse to be unable to enjoy anything without analyzing it to death. And Christmas movies have an odd habit of showing how Americans relate to the rest of the world.
For example, the world that Christmas movies often present has little to do with the one that U.S. policy actually produces—or even with the dynamic, globalized sector that actually makes those movies. They’re products of a global cultural industry that contrives to reflect how at least some Americans—especially those with the most spending power—want the world to be. And the world that Americans imagine they want every Christmas is one that slips further away with every year.
Alexander Ludwig as Andrew and Kat Graham as Erica in Netflix’s Operation Christmas Drop, featuring a congressional staffer and an Air Force base in Guam.
For millions of Americans, the phrase “Christmas movie” increasingly refers not to beloved old classics but to the emergent genre of seasonal films showcased on Netflix, the Hallmark Channel, and elsewhere. At times, they appear so interchangeable that you could swap their titles (Dear Christmas, A Christmas Wish, A Christmas Crush)—and even plot descriptions—without confusing anyone. One movie is literally called A Cookie Cutter Christmas.
Yet it’s wrong to dismiss these movies. Sure, they follow certain conventions, but so do Marvel blockbusters. And men have a nasty habit of denigrating anything that women like—from romance novels to fashion to Lifetime movies—as frippery. Besides, the audience for these movies is way bigger than you’d expect. The Hallmark Channel, which has done a lot to define the genre, charts as one of the top-rated entertainment cable channels (more viewers than the Food Network!)—and it’s routinely one of the most popular cable networks among women in key demographics. Tens of millions of viewers will tune in to watch at least one of the channel’s Christmas movies—and even more for similar films on Netflix, Lifetime, and other platforms.
To win the holiday viewing season, Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, and the rest have to produce Christmas movies at a frenetic pace. Over the past several years, Lifetime has released more than 100 Christmas movies, while Hallmark premiered 40 in 2020 alone. For comparison, Warner Bros. releases about 20 movies in a non-pandemic year.
Sure, these movies are a lot cheaper than major studio productions. Estimates for the cost of a typical Christmas movie range from about $2 million to $10 million. Even a single episode of The Crown or The Mandalorian might cost as much as several of these movies. Netflix or Lifetime can commission dozens of Christmas movies for the same cost as a single mid-budget Hollywood release.
But keeping costs low is only half of the equation. The other half is making money.
Cable channels like Lifetime and Hallmark earn the bulk of their revenue from advertising. That means they need to be able to promise advertisers they will deliver audiences in a predictable demographic (say, women age 25-54). A major programming event, like wall-to-wall Christmas movies, locks down those audiences.
The studios that make these films, like the Motion Picture Corporation of America or MarVista Entertainment, are relatively anonymous. They aim to produce not Oscar winners but reliable content. That reliability has to extend to the vision of the world presented. Real America is a politically polarized place and a racially diverse country. In Christmas America, there are no partisan political divides, and almost everyone is white. The big-city lawyer who finds love when she goes home for the holidays never has a heated argument about a woman’s right to choose with her new small-town fireman beau.
Even Operation Christmas Drop, which features an ambitious congressional staffer sent by her boss to inspect an Air Force base in Guam to see if it can be closed down, ends with the member of Congress choosing to save the base in Guam by sacrificing one in her own district. Reindeer will fly over the Capitol dome before that happens.
Yet the military and the hardships it places on families are recurring themes. If a parent is absent, there’s a good chance we’ll learn that they’ve been deployed—but rarely to where. In Christmas movies, there’s always a military but never a war. Even in overtly military-themed movies like USS Christmas, there’s only the slightest hint that the military is intended for use against adversaries.
The omnipresence of the military, and the kid-glove treatment it receives, is the most realistic way that Christmas movies depict U.S. politics. The military remains, by a long shot, the most trusted institution in the United States—a rare point of bipartisan consensus. But partisanship divides Americans’ view of whether countries like Russia are friend or foe. In Christmas movies as in reality, Americans agree only that they need a military, not why.
Stills from some of the films in Netflix’s A Christmas Prince and The Prince Switch franchises.
Even by Christmas movie standards of realism, though, the treatment of international relations in these films is fantastical. A stock plot involves a plain-spoken American woman meeting and winning over European royalty. Netflix has turned this basic plot into two successful series: A Christmas Prince and The Princess Switch.
If a standard complaint about Americans’ staggering ignorance about the world is that “Africa is not a country,” the prevalence of princes suggests that Americans also need to be reminded that most European countries are republics. They’re modern versions of the “Ruritanian romance,” the 19th-century swashbuckling novels set in imagined monarchies—though with less adventure and more garlands.
The default assumption of Christmas movies is that Americans’ classless, democratic nature clashes with stuffy upper-crust Europeans’ reserve. Reality is different. Rankings like the Varieties of Democracy index routinely show that the United States substantially lags other rich countries in the quality of its democracy. Americans trying to move up the economic class ladder face a steeper climb than Europeans.
The plucky American woman shows the reserved prince that he should care for his people, almost always using orphans as a stand-in. How there are so many orphanages in prosperous principalities is never explained, but there’s always another one—“It’s a world tour of orphans,” one character exclaims in A Princess Switch: Switched Again. Of course, rates of child poverty in the United States are higher than those in most European countries.
These “foreign” countries are never exactly foreign, either. Everyone speaks English, usually with a Received Pronunciation accent—convenient for monoglot Americans who don’t have to even learn a new language to join the ruling family of a foreign land. Christmas movie royal families don’t just reign like British or Swedish monarchs—they really rule.
If the films accurately depict the military’s place in U.S. society, they also suggest that, for many Americans, the world beyond U.S. borders doesn’t meaningfully exist. Sometimes, this becomes literally true, as with the geography of the Netflix Holiday Movie Universe. An infamous map in A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby shows the countries of Aldovia and Belgravia not as postage-stamp pseudo-Liechtensteins but as immense realms comprising the whole of Eastern Europe between them, presumably the result of an alternative history where Queen Victoria’s grandchildren managed to stay on the thrones of Eastern Europe and keep speaking English at home, as Tsar Nicholas II of Russia did with his wife.
With a couple of exceptions, the fact that such a prominent genre can accommodate the rest of the world only as a fairy tale says something important about how Americans imagine the world. Bluntly—they don’t. When Americans want to relax and focus on what really matters, there’s no place like home.
A film still from the 1952 adaptation of The Prisoner of Zenda, set in the fictional land of Ruritania, also the setting for loads of royalty-tinged Christmas romance movies.
But there’s another reason why Ruritanian settings are so popular in Christmas movies. Making these movies on tight budgets turns out to require a cutthroat willingness to film them in the cheapest possible locales. It takes a globalized industry to make Americans feel at home during Christmas.
Many—possibly most—Christmas movies are filmed outside the United States. Most of these all-American fantasies are made in Canada. Five holiday movies filmed in British Columbia in July 2019 alone. Canada offers not only landscapes and cities that can double for American locales but also generous tax incentives and favorable exchange rates.
Other countries have copied Canada. The University of Arizona professor Chris Lukinbeal writes that Romania—the original Ruritania—began to attract Hollywood’s notice after the film Cold Mountain filmed there in the mid-2000s.
Back then, the greatest advantage Romania offered was savings on “below-the-line” costs, like extras and technicians, making the location cost-competitive even after Canadian tax incentives. An increasingly sophisticated film industry grew up to support international productions. Combined with an ample supply of castles and palaces, it became a great place to shoot royal-themed Christmas movies, such as the 2017 Netflix hit A Christmas Prince.
In 2018, the Romanian government created Europe’s most generous subsidy program for film, a fund that could cover up to 45 percent of eligible expenses to a maximum of $15 million. That same year, several Christmas movies were filmed in Romania, including a Christmas Prince sequel, The Princess Switch, and Christmas at the Palace. In 2019, news reports indicated that Romania’s Castel Film Studio applied for nearly 900,000 euros (about $1 million) in rebates for production on A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby under this program.
As in most globalized industries, though, tax incentives attract, but they cannot retain. By 2020, production of A Princess Switch: Switched Again had moved from Romania to Scotland. (The third entry in the series will also film in Scotland; perhaps Netflix could honor the history of real-world European principalities and global capital by calling it A Princess Switch: Tax Haven.)
If the finale of every Christmas movie is about finding the true meaning of Christmas, then what’s the true meaning of Christmas movies? It’s because of all of these factors, not despite them, that these films tell us something about Americans and their place in the world.
What Christmas movies show is that the world Americans want to live in isn’t the world they’ve made. Most Americans live in suburbs, but holiday movies exist in a world of small towns and big cities that feel like small towns. Most Americans work in low-status service jobs, but holiday movies promise that fulfilling work is just one true meaning of Christmas away. Giant corporations loyal only to profits dominate the real economy, but Christmas movie economies run on small businesses deeply embedded in their societies.
The genre also reflects a country that’s less satisfied with the burdens of global leadership than elite discourse suggests. Holiday movies that show families adjusting to the toll of foreign wars also suggest a desire to stop bearing those costs. Far from yearning to lead the international community, the audiences for Christmas movies mostly want to be happy at home while foreigners do whatever it is they’re doing. Should anything too terrible happen, the military will always be there to protect us anyhow.
More happily, it is a country that’s open to some forms of inclusion. Pressures to increase representation in these movies have worked. Black, LGBT, and even non-Christian Americans have an increasing number of holiday movies that show their stories, even if those stories so far are mostly just different colors of frosting on the same cookie recipe. The Christmas movie version of the American dream can be stretched to accommodate everyone—in fiction.
The America that Americans—or at least, a substantial number of them—want isn’t one of threats of civil war and global ambitions. It’s a cozy, stocking-strung fireplace where everyone follows the rules of Christmas—even if the presents were made at reasonable cost, overseas.