US urged to address cyber affair concerns

Washington should take seriously Beijing's concerns about US cyberattacks 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 when cyberspace security has become a hot issue in China-US ties.

Earlier this month, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, "We have sent clear messages to (China) about what it would actually mean if they acted to disrupt American critical infrastructure and how we would respond."

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 made clear to the US its concerns after "China found that the US has carried out long-running, systematic and large-scale cyberattacks against China", he said.

Such attacks "include cyber espionage as well as cyberattacks that jeopardize the security of China's critical infrastructure in areas such 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.

Beijing has emphasized that Washington "should first carry out what it asks others to do", he said.

"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 does not work when it willfully sets rules for other countries based on what it calls a position of strength," he added.

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

China is willing to "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 with mutual respect, discussing any matters of concern with each other openly and honestly, taking facts and supporting evidence as a basis and using common rules as benchmarks", he said.

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

China and the US have the largest influence in the global cyber domain, and both rely heavily on cyberspace, Wang noted.

Furthermore, 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," Wang added, "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".