China ‘willing to work with Trump on cybersecurity’
Pledge to cooperate on what has been a thorny issue in Sino-US ties made by Beijing’s public security minister during talks in Washington
China’s top security official has informed Washington that Beijing is looking forward to working with the Trump administration on cybersecurity, a delicate and thorny issue in China-US ties, state media reported.
The olive branch was extended in Washington on Wednesday by Guo Shengkun, a State Councillor and China’s public security minister, when he was meeting US Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the third round of cybercrime talks, a dialogue agreed by President Xi Jinping and US President Barrack Obama in September last year.
Beijing and Washington have been pointing the finger at each other for years over cybersecurity, accusing each other of hacking and stealing trade secrets.
Beijing suspended the two nations’ only cybersecurity working group in 2014 after Washington indicted five People’s Liberation Army officers for allegedly stealing trade secrets.
It is still unclear whether president-elect Donald Trump will raise concerns with China over cybersecurity while in office.
Trump wrote on Twitter four years ago that “the Chinese are now hacking White House computers. Why not? They already own the place.”
