Obama Warns of Cyberwar During Comments on Chinese Hackers

Obama administration poised to counter Chinese cyberattacks.

President Barack Obama speaks during the quarterly meeting of the Business Roundtable on Sept. 16 in Washington. Obama spoke about his upcoming talks with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, noting cybersecurity would be a key focus. Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images

The issue of the Chinese regime sponsoring hackers to rob American companies in order to feed the Chinese economy is now reaching a boiling point. During remarks at the Sept. 16 Business Roundtable, a quarterly meeting of top CEOs, President Barack Obama gave a terse warning of where the Chinese cyberattacks could lead.

“Although the Chinese and Russians are close, we are the best at this, and if we wanted to go on the offense, a lot of countries would have some significant problems,” Obama said in a streamed broadcast.

He noted that while “we don’t want to see the Internet weaponized in that way,” if negotiations with the Chinese regime over its state-sponsored economic theft fail, the United States has other options.

The leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping, will visit the White House on Sept. 25, and Obama is expected to announce sanctions against Chinese companies that have benefited from the CCP’s state-sponsored cyberattacks.

The reach of such sanctions could be massive. Epoch Times recently revealed the scale of the system used by the CCP for its cyberattacks and economic theft, which stretches into nearly every sector of its society—from state offices, to its military, to state-run companies, and to its state-run universities.

We are prepared to take some countervailing actions in order to get their attention.

— President Barack Obama