China's Cyber Assault: US Representative Says Washington Must Ensure Taiwan Doesn't Suffer Like Ukraine

As Taiwan continues to face threats from China, a U.S. official said Beijing has already launched a cyber assault on the island nation.

The comment came as the U.S. shot down a Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina. It is suspected the balloon was spying and collecting sensitive information on U.S. communication systems and radars.

"The cyber assault on Taiwan has already begun," Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who chairs the House cyber panel, said recently, according to Eurasian Times. "If we are to prevent Taiwan from suffering the same fate as Ukraine, we must work to ensure US Cyber Forces are efficiently organized and operationally capable of defending our interests in cyberspace."

To counter China, lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives want to resolve issues pertaining to recruitment and retention, tied to the Pentagon's cyber forces within the military software and information technology landscape.

Many lawmakers in the U.S. have called for setting up a cyber institute or cyber warfighting school to help attract people opting for the course and increase the workforce to address the recruitment and retention challenges.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has also been amping up its efforts amid the spy-balloon incident.

Recently, Taiwanese officials said Chinese military balloons have been entering Taiwan's airspace "very frequently" in recent years, the Financial Times reported, citing a senior official. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense on Feb. 10 confirmed the Air Force had monitored four balloons flying over Taiwan in February and March 2022.

After the spy balloon was downed over the U.S., the Pentagon released a statement, citing a senior U.S. defense official, saying "while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC [China] surveillance balloon's collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon's overflight of US territory was of intelligence value to us."

"We were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable," the official added.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government claimed Sunday it detected an object of unknown origin off its east coast, and was preparing to shoot it down. This comes as the U.S. reported the fourth unidentified anomalous phenomenon over North America in the last eight days.

According to CNN, the Department of Defense said an "octagonal structure" was shot down over Lake Huron, Michigan, after it flew in "proximity to sensitive" sites.