China’s Claims About Breaking Quantum Encryption ‘Should Make Us Uncomfortable’: Expert

A laser tests the optical waveguide of a chip for quantum computing in a laboratory in Stuttgart, southern Germany, on Sept. 14, 2021. Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images

A group of Chinese scientists is claiming that it has developed a means of breaking public encryption using quantum computing.

In a paper published online in late December, 24 Chinese researchers claimed that they had developed a means of using quantum computing to break the RSA public encryption system which is commonly used in the finance and telecommunications industries.

If true, the paper could have far-reaching consequences for national security and the future of data and privacy.

The release of the paper is likely related to a wider effort by China’s communist regime to develop technologies capable of undermining the United States’ most important technologies, according to Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

“It’s all part of the same pattern of the Chinese using advanced technologies ... for a strategic advantage,” Herman told The Epoch Times.

“The U.S. really needs to come up with their own plan, their own way of not only dealing with the China threat, but also of advancing our own strategic interests in the same coherent way.”

A Warning to the West

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, has been fast at work trying to develop the quantum technology possible to break open public encryption systems like RSA and bring the West down from the inside.

Herman, who also serves as director of the Hudson Institute’s Quantum Alliance Initiative, believes that the CCP does not have the capability to break that encryption, contrary to what the paper stated. Instead, he said, the paper should serve as a warning of the regime’s ambitions.

“I think you have to look take a very hard look at whether the claim is valid or not,” Herman said. “I would say … it doesn’t pose any kind of immediate threat, but it should make us uncomfortable.”

“Don’t wave this threat away. This is what’s coming. And it’s just one more indication of the fact that the Chinese are working hard on this.”

Traditional processors use bits as the most basic unit of information. Bits can be turned to one of two positions, off or on, forming the zeros and ones of binary code.

Quantum processors use quantum bits, or qubits, instead of bits. Whereas regular bits can only be turned on or off, qubits can be turned on, off, or both on and off simultaneously in a phenomenon known as superposition.

The existence of this third state will theoretically allow quantum processors to achieve much quicker processing speeds than their traditional counterparts, making them invaluable in cybersecurity.

As such, Herman previously described quantum computing as the “ultimate weapon” and the race for quantum supremacy as being “potentially as important as the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb.”

To that end, he said that the research paper should come as a warning to the West of the CCP’s ambitions for the near future.

“If you read the paper carefully, you realize what happened is that they didn’t really break into anything,” Herman said during a recent interview with “China in Focus” on NTD, a sister media outlet of the Epoch Times.

“What they claim is that they have devised a universal quantum decryption algorithm, one that can be used to factorize the big numbers that underlie our public encryption systems.

“So, it’s a code-breaking algorithm. What it needs is a machine big enough and powerful enough, with enough qubit power and enough processing power, to be able to be used and wielded in ways that would really make it a dangerous device.”

A Propaganda Victory for Communist China

Though the CCP does not have a device to crack the United States public encryption systems yet, Herman said that the publication of the paper was likely intended to score a propaganda victory for the regime.

“If the Chinese really did have an algorithm that could really do all of those amazing and dangerous and terrifying things, they wouldn’t advertise it,” Herman said. “They would just use it.”

“Is it something that we have to worry about right now? No. Is there a lot of propaganda value for China in making such an announcement? Absolutely.”

As such, Herman said that there was no cause for panic, but that the paper ought to motivate leadership in the West to get their head in the game and work to quickly develop quantum capabilities before the CCP.

“The push that China’s making to achieve that breakthrough, to have that all-powerful quantum computer, is just one front in a multi-front war that they’re conducting against us in the high-tech frontier,” Herman said.

“[This paper] should make us uncomfortable, because it means that this capability is coming along and we’re moving step by step in that direction.”