Cyber disputes loom large as Obama meets Xi

REUTERS

SAN JOSE: President Barack Obama was to complain to Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit today about alleged Chinese hacking of US secrets, even as the White House faces growing questions at home over American government surveillance.

Meeting at the luxurious Sunnylands estate near Palm

Springs in California, Obama will seek Xi’s assurance that he takes seriously accusations of growing Chinese cyber spying, including snooping on advanced US weapons designs.

“All nations need to abide by international norms and affirm clear rules of the road,” a US official told reporters in previewing the summit. “That’s the backdrop to the discussions that the two presidents will have.”

Dispute over cybersecurity could test the two men’s ability to get along when they meet in the Californian desert in talks that are billed as an informal get-to-know-you encounter. Obama intends to tell Xi that Washington considers Beijing responsible for any cyber attacks originating from its territory and that it must take action, US officials said. But in his first meeting with Obama since taking over China’s presidency in March, Xi may not be in a conciliatory mood. He is expected to voice discomfort over Washington’s strategic ‘pivot’ toward Asia, a military rebalancing of US forces toward the Pacific that Beijing sees as an effort to hamper its economic and political expansion. And Obama’s protests about Chinese cyber spying might be blunted by news that the US government has been quietly collecting the telephone records of millions of Americans as part of US counterterrorism efforts. As Obama was flying to California ahead of the summit, more questions were raised about the extent of US government domestic spying when the Washington Post reported that the National Security Agency and the FBI are also tapping into the central servers of leading US Internet companies to examine emails and photos.

Pushing back against years of US allegations of Chinese hacking, Beijing insists it is more a victim than a perpetrator of cyber espionage. China’s top Internet security official said this week that he has ‘mountains of data’ pointing to US hacking aimed at China.

But the US Congress is losing patience, after a report that Chinese hackers had gained access to design plans for US weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. China denied that, saying it needed no outside help for its military development. Just a day before Xi’s visit, three US lawmakers proposed a new law that would punish hackers backed by China, Russia or other foreign governments by freezing their US assets and revoking visas for them and their families.