Official urges US to address China's concerns on cyber affairs

Washington should take seriously Beijing's concerns?against US cyber attacks on?China, and Beijing is also willing to build a cyber relationship?with the US featuring peace,?stability?and mutual respect through dialogue, a senior Chinese diplomat said.

Wang Lei, the Foreign Ministry's coordinator for cyber and digital affairs, made the comments at a time cyberspace security has become a hot spot in China-US ties.

Earlier this month, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, "We have sent clear messages to the PRC about what it would actually mean if they acted to disrupt American critical infrastructure and how we would respond."

In response, Wang said, "We have made it clear to the (Joe) Biden administration that China rejects the US accusations against China on individual cases in the absence of evidence."

At the same time, Beijing has also made clear to the US its concerns: "China found that the US has carried out long-running, systematic and large-scale cyber-attacks against China," he said.

Such attacks "include cyber-espionage as well as cyber-attacks that jeopardize the security of China's critical infrastructures in such areas as telecommunication, finance, and transportation," he added.

"We also introduced to the US side the scope and basis adopted for classifying China's critical infrastructure in accordance with China's relevant laws and regulations, and made clear China's seriousness in protecting its own critical infrastructure security," Wang said.

In particular, Beijing emphasized that the US side "should first carry out what it asks of others to do", he noted.

"The crux of the matter is that the US side should take China's concerns seriously, and it should not consider itself justified just because it speaks louder. It is not working when it willfully sets rules for other countries based on what it calls the position of strength," the Chinese diplomat said.

When asked how to approach the two nations' differences in this area and how will the China-US cyber relationship develop, Wang said China has pointed out that the two major countries should not stop interacting with each other, they should have mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, and should continue moving forward along a stable, healthy, and sustainable path.

"China is willing to uphold the above-mentioned spirit and build a future-oriented China-US cyber relationship," Wang said.

Currently, the two sides have differences in the cyber area, "but they are fully capable of acting on equal footing and mutual respect, discussing any matters of concern to each other openly and honestly, taking facts and supporting evidence as a basis and using common rules as benchmarks," he said.

"More importantly, from a broader scope and a longer-term perspective, we should figure out what kind of cyber relationship China and the US should establish, what kind of rules should be used for their interaction, and should jointly explore the right way to get along with each other in cyberspace," he said.

China and the US are two major countries that have the largest influence in the global cyber domain, and they both rely the most on cyberspace, Wang noted.

Both sides have similar concerns about maintaining their own cybersecurity, especially critical infrastructure security, he added.

"Maintaining peace and stability in cyberspace is not only in the common interest of both sides, but should be the goal of their joint efforts," he said.

"We are willing to work with the US side to build a China-US cyber relationship featuring peace, stability and mutual respect through dialogue. Because we firmly believe that this is in the long run the best way to address the common concerns of both sides no matter how the US administration changes," he added.