US and China to hold talks on hacking Washington: The United States and China have agreed to hold regular, high-level talks on how to set standards of behaviour for cybersecurity and commercial espionage, the first diplomatic effort to defuse the tensions over what the United States says is a daily barrage of computer break-ins and theft of corporate and government secrets. The talks will begin in July. On Friday, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping, who took office this spring, are scheduled to hold an unusual, informal summit meeting in Rancho Mirage, California, that could set the tone for their relationship and help them confront chronic tensions like the nuclear threat from North Korea. US officials say they do not expect the process to immediately yield a significant reduction in the daily intrusions from China. General Keith B. Alexander, head of the U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, has said the attacks have resulted in the "greatest transfer of wealth in history." Hackers have stolen a variety of secrets, including negotiating strategies and schematics for next-generation fighter jets. "It is a serious issue that cannot simply be swatted away with talking points," said a senior US official, who noted that the meetings would focus primarily on the theft of intellectual property from US companies. The issue has implications for Australia, as well, where a report in May said cyberattacks, allegedly originating in China, compromised plans for Australia's intelligence headquarters. Shadow communications minister Liberal Malcolm Turnbull has since voiced support for a global pact aimed at regulating cyberspying. The Chinese government has insisted it is a victim of cyberattacks, not a perpetrator, and Chinese officials have vigorously denied the extensive evidence gathered by the Pentagon and private security experts that a unit of the People's Liberation Army, Unit 61398, outside Shanghai, is behind many of the most sophisticated attacks on the United States. On Saturday, after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke of a "growing threat of cyberintrusions" at a conference in Singapore, in comments directed at China, a Chinese general gave a tart response about the growing US military presence in Asia. Cybersecurity issues loom large between the United States and China because they go to the heart of the economic relationship between the two countries, even more so now that previous sources of friction, like China's foreign exchange policies, have eased in the last year. Chinese academics and industrialists say that if China is to maintain its annual economic growth rate of 7 or 8 percent, it needs a steady inflow of new technology. That could make the Chinese reluctant to cut back on the systematic theft of intellectual property. In return, the Chinese will press the Americans on their use of cyberweapons: while there is no evidence they have been used against Chinese targets, the sophisticated cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear program by the United States and Israel are often cited by the Chinese news media and military journals as evidence that Washington, too, uses cyberspace for strategic advantage. The talks over computer hacking will start as part of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, an annual meeting of Chinese and US officials on a broad range of issues. But a new working group is being organised on the subject that will meet more frequently, officials say. Where the talks will lead, however, is unclear: after considerable debate within the Obama administration, officials have concluded that cyberconflict does not lend itself to the kind of arms control treaties that the United States and the Soviet Union began negotiating 50 years ago. Cyberweapons are held by private individuals as well as states, and figuring out where an attack began can be maddeningly difficult. Another problem, China experts said, is that neither the Americans nor the Chinese are well prepared for a candid discussion of cyberissues. The growth of hacking, and its use in both military and corporate espionage, is a new enough phenomenon that it is not clear how seriously Xi and other senior Chinese leaders view it. New York Times, with Fairfax Media