China's proposed cybersecurity regulations for U.S. tech companies have drawn harsh criticism from President Obama.
In an interview with Reuters, Obama said he raised the issue “directly with President Xi,” clarifying “that this is something they are going to have to change” to do business with the U.S.
China has said companies who sell computer equipment to the country must include secret source code with the purchases, comply with audits and build backdoors into their hardware and software. In a February letter, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 16 other lobbies urged the White House to ask Chinese officials to reverse the “alarming number of troubling, new Chinese policies.”
Obama said the measures would force U.S. companies to turn over “mechanisms where they [China] can snoop and keep track of all the users of those services."
