Hacking the Chamber of Commerce

On the same day a Goldman Sachs economist described the Chinese Communist Party as a "chamber of commerce," a group of Chinese hackers were uncovered eavesdropping on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Fabled magazine publisher Henry Luce famously lamented the loss of China to Communists by noting "Communism is the most monstrous cancer which ever attacked humanity." Now it is just attacking computers.

ABC News reported the hackers, allegedly aided by the Chinese military, have been sneaking peeks of U.S. Chamber of Commerce computers for more than a year. Maybe they are looking for a blueprint of how to act more like a chamber of commerce.

Jim O'Neill, an economist with Goldman Sachs, told NPR that in his 21 years of observing the Chinese, he concluded that while it is a run by a "Communist Party leadership, it's almost more like a chamber of commerce than a political party."

Chinese governmental leaders, O'Neill said, "worry about a lot of major problems that they face, as much as foreign observers and investors." His experience teaches him, O'Neill added, that countries with policymakers who worry about big problems are "usually better places in terms of investing."

Of course, if the Chinese hackers had taken the time to fly to Washington, D.C., they would have noticed the four-letter, three-story word "JOBS" draped in banners on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building, located just across Lafayette Park from the White House. That could have justified all that spending on big dams, high-speed rail lines and wind farms.

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