(Reuters) – China and the United States must cooperate on combating Internet theft, the U.S. envoy to China said on Tuesday, the latest comment in an issue that has become a thorn in relations between countries.
Ambassador Gary Locke also told a U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum in Beijing that all countries must find a legitimate balance between governance and a free, open internet.
Locke’s comments come a month after U.S. intelligence officials warned that for the first time, cyber attacks had replaced terrorism as the top threat to the United States.
A U.S. computer security company said in February that a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks that targeted the United States and stole data from more than 100 companies.
China dismissed the accusation as baseless.
(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones; Writing by Megha Rajagopalan; Edting by Robert Birsel)
