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U.S. and China Agree Not to Conduct Economic Espionage in Cyberspace

September 28, 2015

The Washington Post reported that a long sought agreement with China was reached last week in talks between President Obama and Chinese President XI Jinping. The two agreed that neither country will conduct economic espionage in cyberspace. This has been a bitterly contested issue between the two countries.

The pact also calls for a process aimed at helping to ensure compliance. Without it, there are only words.

The United States has accused China of stealing billions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from U.S. companies and was ready to impose economic sanctions on Chinese firms that benefited from cyber theft. China has always denied that activity. And so does the U.S. Both are clearly lying (thank you Edward Snowden). What moved China "off the dime" appears to have been the threat of sanctions.

The two sides said they would set up a high-level joint dialogue on cybercrime in which senior officials from both countries would be able to review allegations of cyber-intrusions. They agreed to establish a hotline to discuss issues that might arise in that process.

The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General will co-chair the dialogue on the American side. Sanctions are not off the table according to administration officials.

The agreement does not address traditional espionage, such as China’s alleged theft of personal information of more than 22 million current and former federal employees through a hack of Office of Personnel Management computers.

It is only a first step, but if we can keep China (and ourselves) from backsliding, maybe we will ultimately find a way to resolve this contentious issue.

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