China is finally keen on cooperating with the United States to fight hacking. As we know the Dragon country has notorious reputation, it received a warning from a top US official that the international community was losing patience with Beijing. Following this warning, Chinese Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reinforced that the country is itself a victim of attacks in cyberspace.

“What is necessary in cyberspace is not war, but rather regulation and cooperation. China wants to develop constructive dialogue and cooperation and joint safeguarding of the peace, safety and cooperation of cyberspace together with the international community including the United States,” she said. China has repeatedly made such offers in the past. Such cooperation needs to be “based on the principle of mutual respect and trust”, said Hua, calling the issue a “global problem”.

This so-called warning came from US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon who said that Beijing must take steps to investigate and stop cybercrime.

“This is not solely a national security concern or a concern of the US government,” Donilon said, adding that US businesses were increasingly worried about theft of their secrets “through cyber-intrusions emanating from China”.

Just last month, a report from US security firm Mandiant identified a 12-storey white building as the possible nerve center of a global hacking operation conducted by a secret cyberwarfare unit in China’s military. As one of the top computer security firms in the US, Mandiant has carried out numerous investigations on behalf of multinational corporations that have fallen victim to professional hackers over the last three years. Using the evidence its gained from those probes, the firm has carried out a series of reverse-engineering processes to identify IP addresses and decipher codes used by the hackers.

As usual, Beijing flatly rejected such accusations.

Not too long, both US and China traded charges over cyberattacks after the US security firm Mandiant alleged that Beijing controlled hackers who penetrated the US government, companies, and media. Let’s see if both countries can actually cooperate with each other or not.