China and Canada pledge to stop cyberattacks on private sector – China’s latest political and current affairs news

China and Canada signed an agreement on June 23 vowing not to conduct state-sponsored cyberattacks against each other to steal private-sector trade secrets and other confidential business information, according to Reuters. The bilateral act was concluded during the high-level talks in Ottawa between senior Communist Party official Wang Yongqing 汪永清 and Daniel Jean, the national security and intelligence adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Although the accord doesn’t encompass government-backed cyberattacks to hack intelligence information, a Canadian government official, who participated in the meetings, told the Globe and Mail that the “agreement should nevertheless be seen as a potentially important step toward addressing the broader problem of Chinese espionage.”

China has long been accused by other countries of sponsoring hacking activities targeting foreign companies to acquire sensitive technology. In 2015, China and the United States reached a similar agreement on corporate espionage, which, according to U.S. cyber security executives and government advisers, resulted in a drop in breaches attributed to China-based groups. Since the Trudeau government came to office, it has conducted a series of free-trade talks with the Chinese government in an attempt to strengthen economic ties with China, and at the same time to cut its dependence on exports to the United States.

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