Lawmakers Want Tougher Stance on Chinese Cyber-Terrorism

Lawmakers want President Barack Obama to warn China's president during meetings this week that cyber-attacks by the country's government and military against U.S. targets will not be tolerated.

"In years past, this cyber-trade war has been well down the list of bilateral concerns to address with China." House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told The Hill. "It is high time for it to jump to the top of the list."

An elite military unit of Chinese hackers got into the computer systems of more than 100 businesses this past year, said a report from the computer security firm Mandiant. Several major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post were also hit by Chinese cyber-attacks.

Rogers, a Michigan Republican, has accused China of waging a cyber-espionage campaign against American companies, and considers cyber-security a central issue for his committee.

This week's meetings, being held at a private estate in California on Friday and Saturday, will bring Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping together for the first time since Xi was elected this spring.

They will meet just a week after a government report revealed Chinese hackers obtained designs for some of the U.S. military's top weapons.

Other lawmakers joined Rogers in urging Obama to make a warning to the Chinese leader.

In a letter to the president this past week, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said he wants Obama to warn Xi that Congress is mobilizing to take action, including readying legislation to impose "real costs on China" if hackers take proprietary information from businesses.

Levin co-authored a bill that would require the president to block imported goods that benefit from stolen American intellectual property or technology.

"Cyber-security concerns threaten to undermine the positive and constructive commercial relationship between the United States and China," said Marc Ross, a spokesman for the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), which represents more than 200 American companies that do business in China.

However, he said the USCBC believes the meetings will allow leaders a high-level way to "keep the commercial relationship moving forward constructively."