Lawmakers Dismiss China’s Denials Over Cyberattacks

In some of his strongest public remarks yet about the cyberattacks on American companies and government agencies that are believed to have been sponsored by China, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that the situation was “as bad as I’ve ever seen it and exponentially getting worse.”

The committee chairman, Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, confirmed recent reports of ambitious efforts by Chinese hacking groups - traced by one American computer security firm to a Chinese military unit in Shanghai - to penetrate American, European and Asian businesses and siphon off blueprints and corporate secrets.

Obama administration officials have said the attacks have become so intense that they threaten the fundamental relationship between the UnitedStates and China. Beijing has denied any role in computer hacking, saying the activity is illegal.

Asked on the ABC News program “This Week” whether he believed that the Chinese government and military were behind the economic espionage, Mr. Rogers replied, “Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

He said the attacks were illegal and unprecedented in scope, and that the United States was not currently able to protect American companies from them.

“We’re not ready yet,” he said. “We are completely vulnerable to this.”

Mr. Rogers suggested that the United States use not just economic sanctions on those responsible but also to take tough action against specific Chinese individuals.

“I argue you need to start indicting bad actors,” he said. “You need to start impacting individuals’ ability who are participating in this activity in China to get visas, their families to get visas.”

“It’s that serious,” he said.

Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the same program that he had confronted top Chinese officials with the accusations during a recent visit to Beijing. “They just let it roll off their back,” he said. “They pooh-poohed it.” He said Washington should make it clear to the Chinese that “there’s a price to pay.”

While some reports have suggested that the United States and Israel were likely behind cyberattacks against Iran’s nuclear program, Mr. Rogers made two points: First, he said, that people should be “very cauious about ascribing authorship” for those attacks and, second, that such defensive attacks were different from the sort of economic espionage that China is suspected to be involved in.

That, he said, was why he would “send a message to China that you cannot - if you want to be an international player, you can’t act like a thief in the night.”

Governors Issue Warning on Impact of Cuts

Governors in both parties warned on Sunday of the potentially damaging consequences across the country if President Obama and Congress do not agree on a plan to avoid across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to take effect beginning on Friday.

With the prospect of a last-minute agreement in Washington increasingly unlikely, the governors said the scheduled cuts would have a grave impact in a wide range of areas, including the military, Border Patrol and the overall economy.

“The effects will be significant, and people will feel them,” Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said on the CBS  News program “Face the Nation.”

Jan Brewer of Arizona, who also appeared on the program. “It’s really going to hurt our economy.”

On Friday, $85 billion in cuts will automatically begin taking effect, with many domestic programs facing reductions of as much as 9 percent and military programs being reduced by 13 percent over the rest of the federal fiscal year.

Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have been hoping that the threat of drastic automatic cuts - particularly those to the Pentagon - would force Republicans to the bargaining table and lead them to accept a compromise that included a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.

But as of late last week, Republicans made it clear that they would not accept any additional increase in taxes to! avoid the scheduled cuts, known as the sequester. Many Republicans believe their party already relented significantly when they agreed on New Year’s Eve to $600 million in tax increases to end the last budget standoff.

On Sunday, some governors held out hope that the president and Congress could still get a deal even at this late stage. But they also insisted that the nation would be hit hard if the cuts were allowed to go into effect.

Appearing on “Face the Nation,” Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland described the sequester cuts as a threat to the economy and seemed to advocate Mr. Obama’s notion of a “balanced approach” that mixed spending cuts and tax increases.

“These are job killing cuts,” he said. “We cannot cut our way to prosperity.”

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia said that while cuts in government spending were necessary, he expressed concern that the automatic cuts would fall too heavily on the military.

Mr. McDonnell, speaking on “Face the Nation,” faulted Mr. Obama, suggesting he was using the threat of cuts to exact concessions from Republicans. “I think the president is overplaying his hand in order to get people to raise taxes,” he said.