[New Wave] New Security Threats and the Changing Role of Industrial Security

The revised National Intelligence Service Act, which came into effect on January 1 this year, defines "leakage of industrial economic information" as a new counterintelligence duty of the National Intelligence Service (NIS). The National Assembly demanded that intelligence agencies be prevented from interfering in domestic politics while protecting national security from increasingly diverse external threats. The recent Japanese export restrictions were not a typical trade dispute but a historical and diplomatic issue that surfaced as a trade sanction, something we had never experienced before. Although this sanction was limited to a one-time attack on some of Korea's key industries, it served as a wake-up call that it could expand into a full-scale export restriction at any time, potentially harming our entire industrial sector. The world is facing new security threats due to the spread of technological hegemony, protectionism, and nationalism.

Unlike the Trump administration, U.S. President Joe Biden has advocated multilateralism and strengthening alliances, but he continues to emphasize U.S. leadership against the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), indicating that a tough stance toward China will persist. Last year, the U.S. effectively banned direct exports to Huawei from the U.S. as well as exports through third countries, impacting the entire world including Korea. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix halted semiconductor supplies to Huawei in compliance with the U.S. Department of Commerce sanctions. In 2018, the U.S. Congress announced that Huawei’s network equipment was used for Chinese government espionage activities, and the U.S. has pressured its allies to ban the use of Huawei equipment.

In response, China implemented the Export Control Law on December 1 last year, which restricts the export of goods that threaten national security. This law covers advanced products such as semiconductors, electric vehicles, lasers, and rare earth elements essential for weapons, posing a significant threat to our industries as well. Meanwhile, due to COVID-19, Hyundai Motor Group once had to halt production lines because it could not procure parts from overseas, leading to the recognition of pandemics as new national threats alongside vaccine and quarantine crises. Furthermore, during this infectious disease outbreak, the international community chose isolation and blockage measures such as entry restrictions, information concealment, and racial hatred instead of cooperation and solidarity.

We must assess whether we are adequately responding to these international trends and new security threats. Domestically, since the early 2000s, the concept of "industrial security" has been developed to protect and safeguard industrial technology and assets. However, this concept remains passive, focusing on protecting tangible and intangible assets of industrial value, and has limitations in addressing new security threats. There is a need to establish a broader concept of "industrial security" that can actively protect national security and national interests from diverse industrial economic threats. In other words, beyond protecting industrial assets, a system must be established that comprehensively operates various means such as research and development (R&D) policies, diplomacy, international cooperation, specialized personnel, and export controls, while analyzing industrial threats in advance to address vulnerabilities. As seen in the U.S., China, and Japan, the fact that presidents and prime ministers directly oversee comprehensive coordination of industrial security offers significant lessons for us. Especially considering that Japan has analyzed our industries for years, knowing even the number of spoons and attacking weaknesses, we must deeply reflect on whether we have such intelligence capabilities and governance systems.

Professor Son Seung-woo, Department of Industrial Security, Chung-Ang University