During an interview with MSNBC aired on Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to a question on whether there should be more consequences for China over its cyberhacking by stating that we’re trying “to stay ahead of it, both in terms of our defenses, both in terms of taking action, as necessary, against China, making sure that others are doing the same thing, other countries, working from the same page.”
Blinken stated, “[W]hat we’ve done over these past years is to shore up our defenses everywhere, including right here at this department, to do everything possible to detect and uncover these efforts as necessary, to go out, to sanction Chinese entities that are involved in it and others who do it.”
Host Andrea Mitchell then cut in to ask, “Shouldn’t there be more consequences? This is a serious threat.”
Blinken answered, “This is going to be something that’s going to be with us for a long time, and we have to make sure — as we’re doing — that we continue to try to stay ahead of it, both in terms of our defenses, both in terms of taking action, as necessary, against China, making sure that others are doing the same thing, other countries, working from the same page. But there’s no finish line. We have to just keep making sure that we’re as strongly defended as possible and that there are consequences that flow from these actions.”
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