China and Germany plan cyberpeace pact: Will it work?
Germany and China are working to create an agreement that would eliminate economic cyberattacks between the two countries. Chancellor Angela Merkel鈥檚 announcement, made during a trip to Beijing, came Thursday after mounting concerns from small and mid-level German companies that they would be unable to handle the threat of a potential cyberattack from China.
鈥淐hina is very active in economic espionage, and Germany has been an attractive target because of the many technological innovations are happening at Mittelstand [mid-level] companies that traditionally have weak IT-security systems.鈥� Sandro Gaycken, a cyber-security expert at Berlin鈥檚 European School of Management and Technology who helped prepare the deal, . 鈥淭his [agreement] is a big and important step upon which [we] can build.鈥�
The Mittelstand is a to categorize those smaller companies that have less visibility than larger, more well-known firms like German automakers, and bring them up to a similar level of visibility, if not the same economic power.
Germany's interest in a cyber deal with China 鈥撀� 鈥搈ay be primarily focused on addressing the issue of brand piracy from Chinese factories, which recently has become a troubling issue for German manufacturers that struggle to discern the difference between real imported goods and their fake counterparts. that more often than not, counterfeited materials like car parts can even come from the same factories as the real thing.
China has worked to broker similar cybersecurity deals that would protect its economic relationships with the US and Britain. When President Xi Jinping visited the US in September, President Obama made it known that the rising threat of cyberattacks from Chinese firms would 鈥減robably be one of the biggest topics鈥� during their meeting.
The final negotiated agreement between the US and China , but left ambiguous how that limit would be verified or what self-restraints would be put in place. In fact, doubts were raised about the effectiveness of such pacts when聽 that cyberattacks from China continued in full force after President Xi's visit to the United States.
China routinely denies that it engages other countries in computer espionage, preferring instead to portray itself as a victim of attacks from other countries.
鈥淲e are against cyber theft and the stealing of trade secrets,鈥� Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at the Beijing meeting with Merkel. 鈥淲e are [supportive of] protecting intellectual property.鈥�
But , China鈥檚 military has been practicing cyberwarfare against the United States and other countries since 1999, and perhaps earlier.
China has also engaged in cyberattacks against its own citizens 鈥� sometimes aggressively, other times more passively. These are primarily phishing attacks that seek to collect personal data, but at other times have been more sophisticated, complicated efforts to undermine the efforts of Chinese activists to make political and cultural reforms within and outside their own country.
Neither Chancellor Merkel nor Premier Li stated when, exactly, a deal would be reached, but both sides indicated they were keen to have something on paper quickly.
China was recently ranked last on a list of 65 countries for Internet freedom, , a nonprofit agency that observes such trends.聽
