Obama sharply criticized China's plans for new rules on U.S. tech companies, urging Beijing to change the policy if it wants to do business with the United States and saying he had raised it with President Xi Jinping
President Obama has criticized a Chinese plan to force US tech companies to install backdoors into their products for sale in the country. Without stopping for a moment to consider the phrase about glass houses and stones, he told Reuters that China would have to change its stance if it wanted to do business with the US.
The move comes as part of China's new anti-terrorism law, which would require firms to keep data about their users inside China, hand over encryption keys and delete terrorism-related content. Worse than that, however, is that it would force companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple to poke holes in their software so that local surveillance agencies could spy on their citizens.
Ever since Edward Snowden revealed details about the NSA's PRISM program, plenty of foreign powers have been wary of America's biggest tech firms. China itself has attacked various products from Microsoft, IBM, Kaspersky, Symantec, Apple, Facebook and Google, holding each one responsible for espionage-related crimes. Some in Washington, however, believe that the move is simply China's way of handing favorable conditions to homegrown businesses in response to the popularity of western brands in the land.
Of course, the US can't occupy the moral high ground in this instance, since the country's security services have overstepped the mark on more than one occasion. It's not as if these agencies have learned their lesson, either, since the FBI is still demanding that Apple and Google hand over the encryption keys to its devices, even if there's no evidence that encrypted data hurts investigations.
想想华为，被美国列入黑名单，在美国没法做大生意，而实际上国安局渗透进了华为的企业内部。
这不是什么道义上的公正与不公正，而是占据了舆论的制高点，它硬说你，没法子。
嘿，这世界。
中国学着点儿。
苦人不哭 发表评论于
Full statement (via Xinhua)
U.S. President Barack Obama's criticism of the upcoming counterterrorism law of China is utterly groundless and another piece of evidence of arrogance and hypocrisy of the U.S. foreign policy.
Although the enactment of a Chinese law is an entirely internal affair of China, Obama insisted that the measure, which would require technology firms to give Chinese authorities surveillance access in order to collect intelligence about terrorists, is "something they are going to have to change if they are to do business with the United States".
To begin with, the provisions are written for and solely for acquiring more and better counterterrorism intelligence, as China is facing severe threats from various domestic terrorists, for instance, the so-called "East Turkestan Liberation Organization."
Terrorists nowadays use more and more modern technologies for communications and collaboration. And it has become a common practice in many Western countries, including the U.S. itself, to keep a close watch on the Internet and telecommunication networks for possible hints of terrorism and other criminal activities.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency both have access to the equipment of major U.S. technology firms.
FBI Director James Comey publicly warned companies like Apple and Google in 2014 against using encryption that the law enforcement authorities cannot break.
While defending the legitimacy and necessity of similar behaviors in his own country, Obama's criticism of Chinese counterterrorism law obviously shows selfishness and hypocrisy of the U.S. foreign policy.
Secondly, the surveillance of terrorism actions on equipment of the Internet and telecommunication companies in China will be carried out strictly in accordance with the law.
And with transparent procedures, China's anti-terrorism campaign will be different from what the United States has done: letting the surveillance authorities run amok and turn counterterrorism into paranoid espionage and peeping on its civilians and allies.
In fact, the same paranoid and narrow-mindedness, as demonstrated by the over-action of Obama and his cabinet members to the provisions in the Chinese anti-terrorism law, has also denied Chinese technology companies' access to the U.S. market.
Contrary to the accusations of the United States, China's anti-terror law will put no unfair regulatory pressures on foreign companies, because the provisions will apply to both domestic and foreign firms.
Moreover, to win the global fight against terrorism, Obama and his government should treat China on equal terms and stop making foreign policies based on realpolitik and the short term pursuit of its own unilateral interests.
Less than three weeks after Obama held the "counterterrorism summit" in Washington and referred terrorism as one the greatest threats in this generation, the president has begun to slam the counter-terrorism efforts of another country, which makes people naturally question the real intentions of such accusations.
China's new counterterrorism law can help fight terrorism in a better and more effective way. Any setback of terrorists is a victory of all countries.
Obama sharply criticized China's plans for new rules on U.S. tech companies, urging Beijing to change the policy if it wants to do business with the United States and saying he had raised it with President Xi Jinping
President Obama has criticized a Chinese plan to force US tech companies to install backdoors into their products for sale in the country. Without stopping for a moment to consider the phrase about glass houses and stones, he told Reuters that China would have to change its stance if it wanted to do business with the US.
The move comes as part of China's new anti-terrorism law, which would require firms to keep data about their users inside China, hand over encryption keys and delete terrorism-related content. Worse than that, however, is that it would force companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple to poke holes in their software so that local surveillance agencies could spy on their citizens.
Ever since Edward Snowden revealed details about the NSA's PRISM program, plenty of foreign powers have been wary of America's biggest tech firms. China itself has attacked various products from Microsoft, IBM, Kaspersky, Symantec, Apple, Facebook and Google, holding each one responsible for espionage-related crimes. Some in Washington, however, believe that the move is simply China's way of handing favorable conditions to homegrown businesses in response to the popularity of western brands in the land.
Of course, the US can't occupy the moral high ground in this instance, since the country's security services have overstepped the mark on more than one occasion. It's not as if these agencies have learned their lesson, either, since the FBI is still demanding that Apple and Google hand over the encryption keys to its devices, even if there's no evidence that encrypted data hurts investigations.
