Chinese Official Faults US Internet Security Policy

Just days after China and the United States hailed a high-level agreement limiting cyberattacks, a former commander of one of the Chinese military’s top hacking units lashed out at American Internet policy, in a sign of how far apart Beijing and Washington remain on technology issues. Hao Yeli, the former deputy head of the Fourth Department of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Department — which is responsible for the Chinese military’s offensive electronic warfare — said that the United States had double standards with online surveillance and that the uncertainty behind the origin of digital attacks makes it difficult to apply traditional rules of engagement to the Internet.

Hao’s speech punctured some of the cautious optimism analysts had expressed about the agreement between the United States and China, which was intended to rein in hacking theft of intellectual property and create international standards for “appropriate conduct in cyberspace.” Speaking at an Internet security conference in Beijing that also featured a former National Security Agency director, Keith Alexander, Hao challenged the position generally favored by American politicians. He warned that taking away developing countries’ ability to control public opinion through Internet controls and surveillance would result not in more openness, but instead in “blood” and “hatred.”