The Replica Arsenal: How China steals intellectual property from the biggest armament manufacturers worldwide to build its arsenal. watch the full story here
As a motion graphic artist and designer, I had the opportunity to work on an investigative report by Al-Hurra TV, where I designed an interactive website to explain China’s shift from importing weapons to manufacturing and exporting them.
In this report, we delve into the development of Chinese military industries, tracing their history from importing weapons from the Soviets in the sixties to modernizing their army by purchasing weapons from European countries such as France, Germany, and Britain. However, due to China’s poor human rights record, European countries imposed an arms embargo on Beijing in 1989 following the bloody suppression of popular protests in Tiananmen Square.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, China seized the opportunity to buy modern weapons from Russia during its economic crisis and even negotiated a license to assemble aircraft locally, which later allowed them to steal Russian aircraft designs.
China was not satisfied with copying and selling dozens of models of international weapons، they also hacked the world’s major arms manufacturers to steal their intellectual property rights. According to the US Naval Institute, Chinese military hackers succeeded in stealing top-secret documents, including technical and sensitive data that were hacked, and the results were clear in the recent releases of many Chinese weapons.
In March 2016, the US Department of Justice revealed the confession of a Chinese national to his participation in a years-long plot to infiltrate the computer networks of arms companies in the United States. The list of Chinese thefts of US equipment includes attack helicopters, drones, and various other weapons, according to the US Naval Institute.
As a motion graphic artist and designer, I had the privilege of showcasing this important investigation through an interactive website design, which was both informative and visually engaging.
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