Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the USA right now, having just started his week-long trip around the states. It's an important visit for China, and the US, as there has been growing tension in recent times concerning tech developments and investments, the internet, espionage, and cyber warfare accusations.
What we are seeing so far are meetings between China's president and some of the biggest names in the tech industry. However we won't, of course, see or hear much about the goings on at governmental meetings which might touch upon cyber security and cyber warfare topics, even when they are over.
Xi started his tour on the US west coast and met up with a host of tech industry luminaries at a Microsoft event held in Seattle yesterday. Meetings took place between Chinese officials and some of the biggest names in tech including Apple's Tim Cook, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Intel's Brian Krzanich, AMD's Lisa Su, Alibaba's Jack Ma and nearly 20 other such CEOs. (The red team were invited, but not the green team?)
The Chinese president is yet to complete meetings with the US president and other governmental officials but made some statements of intent during yesterday's Microsoft event. Xi is already on record for saying that it is "regrettable" that some Washington politicians have accused China of state-sponsored cyber-espionage in the run up to the tour.
At the Microsoft meet Xi said that "China advocates the building of a peaceful, secure, open, and cooperative cyberspace and believes that countries should formulate Internet-related public policies in line with their respective national realities". Looking to the week ahead the Chinese president added "The two sides should, on the basis of mutual respect, carry out constructive dialogue on cyber issues and forge a new highlight of China-U.S. cooperation".
A particular thorn that the US want to extract from the relationship involves the alleged state-sponsored cyber espionage aimed at companies. Washington thinks that "governments spying on governments in cyberspace is fine," but undermining commercial enterprises should be eliminated, reports the BBC.
Another goal that the US-side would particularly like to see come about this week is some form of bilateral investment treaty. The list of industries into which foreigners can't invest in, in China, would be reduced, said Xi.
