Snowden revelations on NSA strain US-China relations, says Beijing

[Catherina]

Source: The Guardian

Snowden revelations on NSA strain US-China relations, says Beijing

State-run China Daily points to countries' 'soured relationship' on cybersecurity and suggests huge surveillance net is unjustified

Warren Murray
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 13 June 2013 03.42 BST



China has warned that revelations of electronic surveillance on a huge scale by American intelligence agencies will "test developing Sino-US ties" and exacerbate their "soured relationship" on cybersecurity.

...

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department in Washington, said it was not aware of the hacking claims and could not comment directly, but she rejected the idea that such an incident would represent double standards given recent US criticism of Chinese cyber attacks. "There is a difference between going after economic data and the issues of surveillance that the president has addressed which are about trying to stop people doing us harm," she said.

The China Daily article addressed the issue directly. It quoted Li Haidon, a researcher of American studies at the China Foreign Affairs University, as saying: "For months Washington has been accusing China of cyber-espionage but it turns out that the biggest threat to the pursuit of individual freedom and privacy in the US is the unbridled power of the government."

...

In another development, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, rejected suggestions that US surveillance programs were being used by UK authorities to avoid local privacy laws and spy on British citizens. On a visit to Washington where he met the US secretary of state, John Kerry, Hague said: "No two countries in the world work more closely to protect the privacy of their citizens than the United Kingdom and the United States."

...

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/13/snowden-revelations-nsa-china-relations

[Dr Fate]

1. Horrors! And they were going to create jobs for us!

And engage in mutual trade! But nooooo...some commie had to bitch about his "liberty"...

[OnyxCollie]

4. Dr Fate's back!

Huzzah!

[geek tragedy]

2. Snowden is serving his new masters well. nt

[Dr Fate]

6. And we know his commie masters are evil.

They don't even respect civil liberties over there.

And I'm supposed to believe some guy who would live in a country like that?

With ya.

[David__77]

36. Sen. McCarthy?

...

[geek tragedy]

37. Please. He defected to China and provided them classified information. nt

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Well

I didn't expect China to throw Barack Obama a party after Snowden fled the United States and revealed information detailing US hacking against China.

[Summer Hathaway]

5. Gee.

I wonder who stood to benefit from "straining US-China relations", particularly at this moment in time?

[Dr Fate]

7. The Republicans tricked Obama again.

They promised to keep this a secret! Dirty bastards.

[JimDandy]

8. Very well played, if true. n/t

[Summer Hathaway]

11. I wasn't attempting to 'play' anything.

I was merely asking a question - one which, IMHO, seems an obvious one to ask.

Who benefits from the leaking of information that serves to strain US-China relations - and at exactly the moment Obama is meeting with the Chinese?

As they always say, "follow the money". In this case, follow the political gain to be had or lost - and who stood to gain or lose.

[JimDandy]

12. Not you... China.

[Dr Fate]

14. I thought we were talking about you-know who at first.

Then I realized it was the republicans.

[JimDandy]

15. Yes, I got the poster's drift

was just trying to point out who might really be at the helm steering the ship.

[Summer Hathaway]

16. Ooops!

I thought you were saying that I had played something well - which would, due to its rarity, have been headline news.

[JimDandy]

38. LOL.. I'm right there with you. n/t

[Dr Fate]

13. I hope Eric Holder puts those republicans in JAIL!

I can feel it in my bones this time.

[jakeXT]

31. It's not like the AFRICOM wars and the "Pivot to Asia" have been helpful. /nt

[reformist2]

9. An end to our phony friendship with China can't come soon enough, imo.

[Populist_Prole]

19. +1

All the policy of "engagement" ever did was result in more US companies offshoring manufacturing to there ( and selling the stuff here and making a shitload of $ )

[jtuck004]

10. The comments must be for effect, because this stuff ain't invisible, and between network

analyzers and watching the code work on systems and routers and switches and seeing what web pages do, etc, much of this stuff is visible. There must be a few million people involved in this when you total up all those folks around the world, engaged in not only trying to get into and snoop around systems but protect the ones we have. And most countries are quite well aware of each other's activity.

This isn't news to millions of people who see it and work with it every day, but maybe it makes for good newspaper copy.

[jakeXT]

33. In the US it's done with Hardware

Before Snowden, Mark Klein tried to expose warrantless US surveillance

“The government painted me as a nobody, a technician who was merely speculating,” said Klein, who made his disclosures after he accepted a buyout and retired from AT&T in 2004. “Now we have an actual copy of a FISA court order. There it is in black and white. It’s undisputable. They can’t deny that.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1259836/snowden-mark-klein-tried-expose-warrantless-us-surveillance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A


I'm still not sure what he means by hacking into backbones, maybe it's just underwater sea cables with the USS Jimmy Carter.

Past submarines outfitted this way[citation needed] were used to tap undersea cables, to intercept communications of foreign countries. Intelligence experts speculate that the MMP may find use in similar missions as an underwater splicing chamber for fiber optic cables.[4][5][6][7]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uss_Jimmy_Carter

[flamingdem]

17. Gotta love the timing. Snowden shows up in HK just as Obama meets

Xi. There's a plan in action here, question is whose plan.

[Dr Fate]

18. They fooled Obama into spying on us.

Then they revealed the fact at just the right moment. Yes, that is some kinda timing.

[flamingdem]

21. I'm not blaming this on Obama. I'm interested in what this does to US China relations

and what that does in the wider sense.

It's juvenile to turn this into Obama hating as we see on DU.

He's always the "bad daddy" to some people.

[Dr Fate]

24. I'm not blaming Him or his executive branch for spying either.

Just because the Chief Executive's Executive Branch does something does not mean that we need to start blaming the guy in charge. talk about six degrees of separation...

It's not his fault if you know who (Republicans? China?) is snitching.

[pnwmom]

27. Snowden showed documents about US hacking of China to Chinese newspapers

just as the US is negotiating with China.

This is a separate issue and one in which Snowden clearly crossed the line.

[Dr Fate]

28. It's not Obama's fault if this punk snitches on him twice.

Separate issue? If you say so. I thought we were saying this was all timed out for effect. I'm cool either way.

[pnwmom]

29. The timing wasn't an accident.

Snowden is handing classified info about hacking to the Chinese newspapers while Obama is negotiating about hacking with China -- thereby undermining Obama.

I think it was planned well in advance -- when he took his "vacation" trip to Hong Kong months ago.

[Dr Fate]

30. I'm just relieved to know that Obama was spying on us AND China.

I mean, at least we were not being singled out.

[pnwmom]

32. Obama hasn't been spying on us.

They've been collecting unidentified information about phone calls. If they want more information than that, if they want to wiretap, they have to go to a judge with probable cause and get a warrant.

And none of this has been done secretly. The Patriot Act authorized this years ago and anyone who was paying attention knew this.

What WAS new was a bunch of lies that Greenwald embellished his story with -- such as the lie that the government was able to get into Google and other networks through a super special secret back door.

[Dr Fate]

34. I think that Obama should use Bush's Patriot Act too.

it's perfectly legal, and everyone knew it before Snowden lied about it.

Obama knows that Bush's law is not going to hurt anyone who is not doing anything wrong- it's a good, perfectly legal law. the law is the law.

Plus, Obama should use every tool he has ( And yes, even if President George W. Bush came up with it...)to protect us against those freedom haters who would take away our civil liberties.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

20. Oh, the self-righteous indignation of this place (China) and their hubris makes me blood boil.

A government run by shallow, callous half-wits that feel everything short of kissing their bribe taking, corrupt, overly pampered asses is an "insult to China and the Chinese people."

And again, I live in China.

[flamingdem]

22. Cool. As you see from my post above I'm very interested in

how the Snowden / NSA revelations regarding US hacking of China will impact relations.

So far it looks very destructive. I want to know why, who set this up.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

26. It will turn into face saving fingerpointing and give the children that run the Chinese government

the excuse to back us into a corner, all the while hiding they own sophistry and hypocrisy. I know how people here in China think.

And before I get called a bigot, live in this country for a while and then you'll understand the groupthink that happens here.

[rpannier]

23. The Chinese clutch their faux pearls to feign their faux outrage

Considering the amount of hacking they've done, stealing secrets, etc they hardly have any room to be all hurt about this

[flamingdem]

25. So in fact the revelations won't necessarily hurt US China relations

... it's just aaawkward

[Laelth]

35. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth