Washington asked to help probe 'phishing sites'
China and the U.S. have agreed to establish a hotline mechanism to deal with cybercrimes, as the second round of cyber security talks between the two countries began Tuesday in Beijing.
The two sides also agreed to jointly release a list of achievements and will hold the third round of cyber security talks in Washington DC later this year.
During Tuesday's talks, both sides exchanged views on various topics, including information sharing on cybercrimes and cooperation on cyber security.
Chinese Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun, who co-chaired the two-day talks with U.S. officials, said strengthening cooperation on cyber security serves the interests of both countries as well as the world.
Guo said progress has been made in cyber security since Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama met last year.
The two countries signed an anti-hacking accord in September last year, pledging that neither country would knowingly carry out hacking for commercial advantages.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Suzanne Spaulding said, "We look forward to discussing the commitments we made with regard to not engaging in IP theft of trade secrets and confidential business information."
"A key element of the agreement is information sharing and establishing mechanisms," she told reporters, adding that the two sides had been setting up email addresses to share information.
A source told the Global Times that China recently made 20 inquiries to the U.S., asking them to help investigate phishing websites posing as Chinese banks.
Tsinghua University professor Shen Yang told the Global Times that since September 2015, China and the U.S. have been pushing forward cyber security talks with "rare efficiency."
Shen believes that the two countries have reached some consensus in the process and have tried to manage their differences, and that the situation has improved from where misjudgment is likely to take place to resolving the issues through dialogue.
Cyber security has long been an irritant between the two sides. China withdrew from a working group in 2014 to protest the U.S. indictment of five Chinese military officers, accusing them of hacking into U.S. companies.
Wang Yongqing, the secretary-general of China's Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai and U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus also attended the talks.
