Apple, China talk hacking?

Apple CEO Tim Cook talked consumer data privacy with Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai during a Wednesday meeting.

But the opaque report from the Xinhua state news agency didn’t say whether the meeting was related to reports China has been surreptitiously collecting Apple iCloud users’ sensitive data.

{mosads}The two “exchanged views on protection of users’ information during their meeting,” the report said. Apple declined to comment further.

Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 in China last week. The company has been touting the new device’s automatic encryption features to help prevent governments from accessing user data.

“They also exchanged views on strengthening cooperation in information and communications fields,” the report said.

The Chinese government has denied it was behind the attack.

“Wild guesses and malicious blemish” will not help solve such cyber attacks, said a foreign ministry spokeswoman, according to Xinhua.

Nor have possible state cyberattacks thwarted tech companies from deepening ties with China.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also in China this week to meet with officials at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The school appointed Zuckerberg to its board.

Facebook, which has long been blocked in China, has been vocal about its desire to make inroads in the communist country.

Not since 2010, when Google moved its China-based operations from Beijing to Hong Kong, has a major tech company seriously confronted China over alleged hacks, said David Kennedy, CEO of information security company TrustedSec, in an interview.

“That’s the only time you’ve ever seen repercussions against China,” he said.