> In most other countries I imagine that most of the hackers are either third-party actors [...] or random 'kids'
Let's say this hypothesis is true; we should then deduce that the Chinese government is years (decades?) ahead of "developed" countries in terms of information warfare. It's quite a worrying thought.
Let's say that your hypothesis is actually false: this would mean that there is an ongoing similarly-sized info-warfare effort waged by the US government (at least), but we rarely hear about it. Again quite a worrying thought.
My thoughts exactly. The US probably has a just as big or more sophisticated organization of hackers and cyber warriors. It's fantastic and also overlooked when talking about Chinese cyber espionage. Much talk seems so one sided, but it's hard to objectively talk about without knowing what the American cyber warriors have been up to. I'll take it as a sign that they're doing a good job and not getting caught. Furthermore, I take comfort in the fact that there are slim chances that the US and China would actually go to physical war with each other. I want to end up working with China in the future, not necessarily against them.
China will certainly won't start a war against the US. There is actually a joke in China saying that if US wants to delay any high level government meetings they can just ask the US schools to have a mandatory parents meeting. And then many of those who in control of China will just fly over because they care about their children as much as other ordinary parents if not more.
And the US will certainly won't start the war either, because you can hardly find someone else who keep lending you money almost unconditionally.
Let's say this hypothesis is true; we should then deduce that the Chinese government is years (decades?) ahead of "developed" countries in terms of information warfare. It's quite a worrying thought.
Let's say that your hypothesis is actually false: this would mean that there is an ongoing similarly-sized info-warfare effort waged by the US government (at least), but we rarely hear about it. Again quite a worrying thought.