In September this year, Taiwan repelled a mainland attack of Trojan Horse viruses on its government computer systems. Chinese hackers had introduced more than a score different Trojan Horse programs, into the networks of ten private high-tech companies on the island that then spread into at least 30 different government agencies and 50 other private companies.  Among the world's largest computer hardware and software producing bases, Taiwan’s information resources are highly vulnerable to such Chinese offensives.

While there was a time when China would have been unquestionably at the receiving end of a web-based conflict between the two sides – Taiwan's computing abilities are still among the best in the world – the mainland has rapidly shored up its abilities since 1999.  It was in that year that Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui’s seminal, “Unrestricted Warfareâ€Â