Xi appeared genuine. But then came Trump, who turned the table over with tariffs and the trade war. If it weren’t for that, some officials told me, Chinese industrial cyberattacks might have slowed to a trickle. But the cynics saw it differently. The agreement had always been a con job, they said. Xi was just biding his time. Two years later, the cyberattacks resumed. Only these weren’t the sloppy spearphishing attacks of the previous decade. They were vastly more stealthy, strategic, and sophisticated.
