A new deal emerged between the US and China regarding economic espionage. Both countries agreed that neither government “will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.” An important and to many analysts even surprising turn of events. China was always notoriously known not to reply, let alone comply to similar requests in the past. But things have changed. The agreement came to reality due to two important factors. First, the US continued to confront China publicly with evidence regarding their hostile activities against US companies, not withstanding Chinese denial of – legally – deniable material. Second, Obama seemed to be willing to take the confrontation to a new level. No one of course would ever want to exchange hostilities on this. But the White House did announce a series of severe economic sanctions against the Chinese, as punishment for past cyber spying. Sanctions may be difficult for China in a number of ways and send controversial signals around the world, so Beijing agreed to sign the informal agreement to curb economic spying.
However, there is a lot of doubt regarding the outcome. While it is likely that Chinese spying against large enterprises in the US will decline (they may have exfiltrated everything already anyhow), medium enterprises will not enjoy the same level of protection. In addition, there is doubt about the effectiveness of the deal. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, has been asked if, in his opinion, it would actually stem Chinese economic spying. The answer was a plain “no”. And finally, the US may simply have shifted the problem to Europe. Chinese cyber troopers may not spy on US companies anymore, but they will not get fired. They will be reorganized and fitted with a new mission. This mission may very well be: Europe. Falling short of any similar agreements, it may be the most attractive target available.
But history is still young at this point, implementations have to be made, further work will be required, and it is difficult to predict the ultimate outcome of the new deal. At any rate, it is a start into a different kind of dialogue with China. Europe and Germany should consider following the US in the wake of its agreement, striking their own no-eco-spy deal with Beijing. The Chinese government may be more willing now than ever before, and many problems would certainly improve over time following a first set of commitments.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/27/cybersecurity-deal-with-china-called-small-step
http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/09/29/us-intel-official-not-optimistic-about-us-china-cyber-deal