The 2015 agreement in perspective

Now that I can see and analyze the agreement in perspective, I have found among the sources that I consulted divided opinions, some are pointing out at the uniqueness of the agreement, given that it is one of the first of its kind, while others are tremendously skeptical about it “The entire process is been seen by some as an elaborate way of saying that the two sides agreed to nothing”(Brown & Yung, 2017b).

After the agreement was made, President Xi continued denying China’s involvement in the theft of commercial secrets, which made a lot of people skeptical about the willingness of China to do something about the issue. Internally, China referred to the agreement as a consensus making it even more difficult to know what that really means. “China believes each party has the right to exercise the discretion in how to proceed. By contrast, the United Staes believes the two sides have agreed to specific measures”(Brown & Yung, 2017b) The US-China agreement served as a way for China to express its willingness to get closer with western countries and was the predecessor for a United Kingdom-China agreement. In the case of the United States, days after the visit, President Obama noted that: “the question now is, are words followed by actions?”

according to The Atlantic (Kelly & Foran, 2015).

A few days after the agreement, according to The Diplomat (2017b), the FBI reported that hackers based in China had hacked into companies contracted with the Navy and Marine Corps, stealing military information. Given that the agreement mostly is about protecting Intellectual Property theft, these actions do not necessarily violate the agreement, as the agreement doesn’t state that countries can’t collect classified information useful for their national security interests.

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Weeks in, a company called CrowdStrike Inc. said that it detected at least seven cyberattacks against US technology and pharmaceutical companies targeting Intellectual Property. These incidents could be an indicator of how successful or unsuccessful the agreement was at the moment. “I haven’t seen any evidence of increased arrests in China for ‘cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property’ outlined in the agreement, even though the idea was for more cooperation on investigating crimes. The number of incidents reported in recent months looks to be similar to those before the agreement, so we have no real evidence of any changes yet” said Sarah Granger, form the Truman National Security Project.

On the other hand, there are also entities such as NBC News that report that after the agreement was set up, Chinese hacking thefts of American corporate secrets plummeted in the months after. The co-founder of the same company that reported the cyberattacks right after the agreement, Dmitri Alperovitch, also said to NBC that they observed a 90 percent drop in commercial hacking against the United States attributable to Chinese Government actors. But he also acknowledged that Chinese intelligence agencies are still hacking to steal national US security secrets, but his company doesn’t consider them as a big problem given the fact that he said it is exactly what the NSA is also doing to China and other US adversaries.

Adam Segal also says that the agreement has been relatively working, he argues that The Chinese hackers may have shifted activity to Southeast Asia. Also, China has seen an increase in domestic intrusions against companies in China.

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5.5 Summary

In this chapter, I described President Xi’s first state visit to the United States, and how it became a breaking point in terms of cybersecurity given the fact that because of it, both Presidents officially agreed to enhance security in the cyberspace. This agreement consists of four main points: provide timely responses to requests for information and assistance concerning malicious cyber activities, refrain from conducting or knowingly supporting cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, pursue efforts to further identify and promote appropriate norms of state behavior in cyberspace within the international community, and establish a high-level joint dialogue mechanism on fighting cybercrime and related issues. I also analyzed the role of both presidents in reaching this agreement and some ideas in which by using the theoretical framework described in the first chapters try to detail why they decided to cooperate in a conflictive matter such as cyberspace. Finally, I show the official reactions both governments had after the state visit and I analyzed what experts say about the number of the attacks after the agreement, to see if they actually decreased or increased.

By using the neorealist theoretical framework I assume that both the United States and China just decided to cooperate in order to prevent advances in the relative power of each other.

According to the theory as well, States might even let go of some opportunities to increase their absolute capabilities if doing so contributes to a more stable distribution of power. So it can be possible that even though the United States had the technical opportunity, given its supremacy in technology, it let the opportunity go just to avoid further conflict with China. Because as Waltz says “the first concern of states is not to maximize power but to maintain their positions in the

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system” (Waltz, 1979) In this view, the United States would be just looking to maintain their superior position in the cyberspace and they are trying to avoid war by effectively (or at least try to effectively) control the use of cyberattacks.

On the other hand, the agreement was easier to portrait by using the Liberal framework, since they say that peace can be achieved through cooperation and consensus, so in order to maintain the status quo, and avoid the sanctions they must cooperate.


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