US, Europe press China to drop tech security rule

Global technology suppliers face a looming Chinese deadline to reveal the inner workings of computer encryption and other security products in a move the United States and Europe say is protectionist.

Suppliers must comply with the rules that take effect Saturday or risk being shut out of the billions of dollars in purchases that the Chinese government makes of smart cards, secure routers, anti-spam software and other security products. Encryption codes and other trade secrets would have to be disclosed to a government panel, and the foreign companies worry they might be leaked to Chinese rivals. Washington and the European Union say no other nation imposes such a demand and want Beijing to scrap or at least postpone it. Washington wants China to "follow global norms," said Nkenge L. Harmon, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative, in an e-mail Wednesday. In a meeting this month, she said, American officials "pressed China to address the concerns of foreign governments and industry before implementing the testing and certification rules." The requirement "has no real base in reality," the visiting EU trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, said Tuesday. "We cannot see what they see in regard to security, so we are in fact disputing this."