14 DAY TRIAL // After his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, many experts said they doubted that President Obama pressed his counterpart too much on the issue of cyber security.
However, in an interview with “The Charlie Rose Show,” broadcast on Monday, President Obama said he had very “blunt conversations” on the matter with Xi. He believes China has begun to understand that cyber espionage can affect US-China relations.
Interestingly, the US president made several references to China hacking the systems of Apple.
“I don't think you ever expect a Chinese leader to say, 'You know what, you're right, you've caught us red-handed. We're stealing all your stuff, and every day we figure out how we can get into Apple’,” Obama said, cited by AFP.
He admits that all nation states gather intelligence, but claims China has gone beyond standard fare, even trying to learn when he’s meeting with Japanese officials, or what his talking points are.
“There's a big difference between that and a hacker directly connected with the Chinese government or the Chinese military breaking into Apple's software systems to see if they can obtain the designs for the latest Apple product. That's theft. And we can't tolerate that,” the president explained.
During their meeting, Xi – whom Obama believes is a better leader than some of his predecessors – reiterated that China was also a victim of hacking.
So far, China has settled with denying the accusations brought against it. However, in a recent statement issued by Chinese officials, they have even provided numbers to show how many US computers were used to hijack 2.9 million of their mainframes in the first quarter of 2013.
On the surface, work groups are established and both sides are calling for open collaboration on the matter. However, it’s unlikely that this will have a significant impact in the near future.