"Advanced" Persistent Threat
It surely is a Persistent Threat, but they are not advanced. Rather, US corporations are stuffed full of Dumb Fsck Managers and the result is that networks and computer systems are badly secured.
Take the RSA case - they thought that highly sensitive computers with access to cryptologic systems needed the whole stinking comercialware pile - MS Office, Flash, Outlook installed
I don't think anyone in a proper German company would have had such as stupid idea. If you want highest security levels, you need to strip systems down to the bare minimum and turn every non-essential feature off. If an engineer needs to perform office communications, he/she will get an additional PC.
So the Chicoms are doing America a favour - they reveal hilarious security problems at a time they are moderately important.