According to officials who are involved in the talks, the United States and China are in talks of what could become the first arms control accord for cyberspace, sharing the efforts and commitments by each country that it will not be the first to use cyber weapons to cripple the other’s critical infrastructure during peacetime.
Although such an agreement can be addressed to attacks on power stations, banking systems, cellphone networks and hospitals, it is not, at least in its early state, possible to defend against most of the attacks that China has been accused of conducting in the United States which includes the theft of millions of government employees’ personal data as well as the prevalent poaching of intellectual property.
In the recent weeks, negotiations have been conducted with great urgency aiming to reach an agreement on time for the state visit of President Xi Jinping of China as he arrives in Washington on Thursday. President Obama showed some early signs at the negotiations on Wednesday when he discussed with the Business Roundtable that the increasing number of cyberattacks would “probably be one of the biggest topics” of the summit meeting, and that his goal was to see “if we and the Chinese are able to coalesce around a process for negotiations” that would ultimately “bring a lot of other countries along.”
No state should allow activity “that intentionally damages critical infrastructure or otherwise impairs the use and operation of critical infrastructure to provide services to the public” is one of the key principles of the United Nations document on principles for cyberspace. The aim of the American negotiators is to convince Chinese leaders in embracing the principles of the United Nations code of conduct in a bilateral agreement with Washington.
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