Ah, you are just in your own little world, aren't you?. It's not about me or you, or my data, or yours. It's about China vs. America. Haven't you been paying attention to the last few decades? These people just bought an aircraft carrier. Taiwan? Firewalls? Tiananmen Square? Little Red Book?
If you are planning on going to war some day, every advantage is painstakingly accumulated; like supporting socialists for US presidents and enticing a superpower to move its manufacturing base over to them. It's straight from Sun Tsu -- another Chinese. I can see all sorts of ways having a cross-referenced history of a small set of data on common citizens can give a military advantage in war, and I'm probably just scratching the surface. The Chinese have been using information on their citizens against their own people for years. Do you argue that they don't know how to use information on us against us; just because you haven't spent anytime thinking about it?
They bought that aircraft carrier a long time ago. And there’s nothing on my harddrive or yours that will help them actually do anything with it.
Having a bunch of porn and MP3s filched off our drives isn’t going to help them any. As others have pointed out, if they REALLY wanted our computer info they’ve got much much easier ways to get it than hoping the “right” people buy the “right” external drive and do the “right” things with it after it breaks in the “planned” way.