China’s cyber shift prompts scrutiny

China has shifted on cybersecurity in recent months, offering a string of concessions culminating Wednesday with the possible arrest of hackers behind the biggest hack of the U.S. government in history.

China has struck unexpected deals and scrambled to schedule meetings with U.S. officials to quell concerns over allegations of cyber crimes that pilfered U.S. corporate secrets and data on government officials.

{mosads}Outwardly, the actions represent a profound adjustment in Beijing’s attitude toward hacking.

“I think we are certainly seeing for the first time a recognition by China that nation-state economic espionage violates the rules of the road,” House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told The Hill.

But lawmakers and policy experts caution that Beijing may just be going through the motions to avoid tougher steps by the Obama administration, without actually scaling back its hacking operations.

“I view it with a healthy skepticism,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas). “I think a lot of it was superficial and goodwill in nature.”

“I think the possibility is there,” added Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Homeland Security’s top Democrat. “You just never really know. I think we’ll keep talking.”

The arrests were revealed at the end of this week’s U.S.-China cybersecurity summit, which took place Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

“The timing of the announcement is intentional,” said Christopher Swift, a former official with the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control and a current national security professor at Georgetown University.

He argued Beijing’s steps show China wants to signal a change in its position. Whether it really represents a shift “is a different issue altogether,” he said.

China hasn’t revealed the names of those arrested, nor whether they are affiliated with the government, as many in the U.S. have suspected.

“The Chinese have a history of arresting people for doing things that they might have not done,” said Adam Segal, a Chinese cyber policy expert and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The steps by China follow President Xi Jinping’s state visit in September.

At the time, the Obama administration was threatening to slap prominent Chinese companies with economic sanctions and lawmakers were pressing President Obama to retaliate for the hacks at the Office of Personnel Management, which exposed over 22 million people’s data.

At the meetings, Obama and Xi unveiled a vague “common understanding” that neither side would conduct nor “knowingly support” corporate hacking.

China then doubled down on this pledge, first by inking a similar agreement with the United Kingdom and then by signing on to a broader anti-hacking deal during the Group of 20 summit in Antalya, Turkey.

“I think China knows that if the conversations break off, then obviously those sanctions will potentially get in place,” Thompson said.

Under pressure from the U.S., Chinese authorities also rounded up a number of hackers at the time — an unprecedented move for Beijing.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported the OPM hackers may have been among those arrested in the sweep.

The news came hours after a Chinese media outlet said the OPM hit had been conducted by cyber criminals, not state-backed digital spies, as senior U.S. officials have indicated. The report caught many off guard, as it was the first time the Chinese had admitted any degree of involvement in the incident.

Schiff saw it as part of China’s broader willingness to opening discuss cyber issues.

“I don’t think they’ve ever even acknowledged the problem or been willing to distinguish economic espionage from [foreign government] espionage,” he said. “So I think that’s significant.”

Allies of the administration argue the Chinese are making concessions, and that this shows the White House’s policies are working.

“The last two months have been nothing but shocks,” Jason Healey, a former director of cyber infrastructure protection at the White House, told The Washington Post. “This is a string of incredible diplomatic successes.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest declined to comment directly on the issue Wednesday afternoon, instead pointing to the ongoing cyber meetings in Washington this week and a brief exchange between Obama and Xi during this week’s Paris climate talks.

“The issue of cybersecurity was raised in their conversations,” he told reporters. “This continues to be a top priority of the president — of President Obama in terms of our relationship with China.”

Even if China’s moves are largely symbolic, skeptics say it suggests Beijing realizes it risks sanctions.“That’s the leverage we have to start using with these nations that conduct cyber warfare operations,” McCaul said. “I do think that got them to the table.”

CFR’s Segal said that if the arrests are true, “it would be significant, even though we wouldn’t necessarily have to accept the motivations for it.”

Katie Bo Williams contributed