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Big Data and Cyber Attacks: The Cyber Dragon Awakening

China is not content anymore to merely influence its region. It aims to play a greater role on the international
stage. In both ambitions, cyber space and big data are a great help.

The Great Contender with Resentment

1
China has the world’s second-largest military budget with USD 228 billion spent in 2017. It represents
2,3
13.4% of the world’s economy and, by 2026, it will overtake the US as the largest GDP. Its solid growth
is combined with new policies to ensure a supply of raw materials, thus switching from a “made in China”

policy to a “created in China” one, with innovation as a core principle and the defense of its economic
and political interests abroad a key goal.

China’s aspirations of expansion and liberty of movement do not only come from its wish for a global
policy, but also from a past century of humiliation: 100 years etched in its collective mind as a terrible

1 SIPRI, “Military expenditure by region in constant US dollars, 1988-2017”, SIPRI, 2018
https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/4_Data%20for%20world%20regions%20from%201988–2017.pdf
2 SCOTT Malcom & SAM Cedric Nigel. “China and the United States: Tales of Two Giant Economies”, Bloomberg, May 12, 2016
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-us-vs-china-economy/
3 China Power Team. “What does China really spend on its military? ”, China Power CSIS, Oct 9, 2018
https://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/

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