Wasn't this more intelligence gathering?
The appropriate response would be more akin to hacking back into China's social credit scoring company and snooping around.
I believe it raised to a level above spying and intelligence gathering. It was a state sponsored military act of cyber warfare that infringed on the US' territorial sovereignty.
>The appropriate response would be more akin to hacking back into China's social credit scoring company and snooping around.
The purpose of a proportionate response to military acts under the UN Charter and the use of force and armed conflict is not so much "an eye for an eye" (i.e. you hack me, I hack you), but to put an end to the military operations infringing on your sovereignty ...for example, assuming you believe Iraq had WMDs and chemical weapons or response is not to create stock piles of our own chemical weapons.