The dataset, which allegedly contains more than 10 petabytes of sensitive information, is believed by experts to have been obtained from the National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) in Tianjin – a centralized hub that provides infrastructure services for more than 6,000 clients across China, including advanced science and defense agencies.
The Chinese government has been pretty careful about following the rules when dealing with other countries, largely out of a naive belief that if they follow them, other countries will treat them accordingly, not understanding international norms is just America playing Calvin ball.
See: China joining the WTO, followed by the US simply breaking the organization to prevent any rulings against itself, or China’s support for the Philippines and Indian governments instead of ideologically aligned communist movements, as if helping them stabilize themselves would benefit China in future dealings.
Alternativelly, they’ve just been competent in the execution of their less savory intelligence operations and thus not been caught doing something too outrageous.
It makes a lot more sense for China to arrange an “overdose” than shoot somebody in the middle of a busy street in broad daylight from a car with diplomatic plates and a Chinese flag.
Same for all other countries, by the way, though in Autocracies politicians have less to worry if the country ever gets caught murdering people in foreign soil than politicians in Democracies do (though, judging by a century of American murders, even those in supposed Democracies almost never have to worry about it)
Completely ignoring the stuff that’s been happening in the South China Sea and the Indian border huh?
Not giving up your territory to minimize the number of adversarial military bases off your coast is entirely normal. Hell Taiwan still claims the 13 dash line, since Mainland China gave up some dashes here and there, including a couple to Vietnam once it was clear they weren’t going to host foreign troops.