By Shannon Tiezzi
Yes, a potential US-China cyber deal is important, but it will leave many key issues unresolved.
China and the United States are in negotiations over a cyber agreement that would see each side commit not to conduct a cyber first strike against the other country’s critical infrastructure, the New York Times’ David Sanger reports. My colleague Ankit Panda has more on the implications of such a “cyber arms control” agreement, should it be successfully announced during President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States this week.
Both Washington and Beijing would be eager to present some sort of agreement on cyber issues – one of the most vexatious problems in the relationship – during Xi’s time in America. A cybersecurity-themed delegation from China held talks on exactly that issue with U.S. officials from September 9 to 12. Presenting at least a partial solution to the cyber debate would do wonders for public perceptions of the U.S.-China relationship.
Yet precisely because both sides will be eager to frame this as a breakthrough, it’s important to note the limitations of such an agreement. For one thing, as Sanger notes, such a deal is unlikely to actually spell out a definition of what constitutes “critical infrastructure.” That lack of clarity also plagued a 2015 report from the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Information Security (GGE), which included a list of “norm, rules, and principles” for state behavior in cyberspace.
Read the full story at The Diplomat