I spy with my little foreign-policy eye a disaster in United States cybersecurity.

The United States and China are being applauded for reaching a major agreement that will force the Chinese government to stop spying on American businesses and to use its law enforcement to help the U.S. catch hackers. But spying directly on each other’s governments — the United States’ preferred strategy — is still fair game. Although this sounds like a step in the right direction in theory, it pretty much lets the U.S. continue what it’s already doing — spying directly on governments — while forcing China to change a major part of its intelligence strategy and go after its own citizens. So, why would China take this deal? Because it’s not going to live up to its end of the bargain, and frankly, it has no reason to.

To start, the Chinese government isn’t directly spying on U.S. companies. There’s strong evidence, however, that the military — which is run by many of the same people as the civilian government — is. Like any modern government, the Chinese government needs to keep its citizens relatively happy to stay in power, and stealing corporate secrets helps China compete. The country is not doing this with environmental protections or liberties, so it does so with a strong economy. Party officials have every incentive to help businesses steal — it makes them money, it makes their citizens money and it keeps them in power. Many American politicians whine that we rely on China, but China relies on us, too. The U.S. is a major market for its mass-produced products, and as the U.S. learns to cut down production costs and push “made-in-America,” it takes a part of that market away. It makes sense to learn everything about both your market and your competition, and by looking into American companies, China is killing two birds with one stone. So the business leaders are happy, the people are happy and the politicians are happy.

Even if the Chinese government did want to hold up its end of the bargain, it could still get away with private-sector spying. President Xi Jinping has asserted the Chinese government does not aid in stealing commercial secrets from U.S. companies. This seems like a blatant lie. But if you look at his language carefully, it actually isn’t. The Chinese government may not officially spy, but the military can. Unlike in the U.S., in China the military and the main governing body can actually operate as parallel entities. Although this isn’t happening currently (President Xi has relatively firm control over both), constitutionally, it’s still technically correct to say the government isn’t doing something when the military is. This means the agreement isn’t covering the most advanced — and dangerous — forms of spying. These are the attacks on U.S. defense contractors, who produce some of the most top-secret and likely dangerous weapons in the world. If this sounds terrifying, that’s because it is.

We spy. China spies. We just focus our energy on spying on different things. Creating an agreement that looks at cybersecurity from a U.S.-defined perspective isn’t just ideologically flawed. It can have real, destructive policy implications. If the U.S. is going to fight international hackers, the best offense is a good defense. By improving our own information-security infrastructure, as well as actively partnering with private companies and firms who may be at risk, we no longer risk having one party back out of the deal because everyone is on the same side. It is naive to think China will live up to an agreement that is blatantly bad for its government and its people. It’s not something we would do, and it’s not something we should expect other major countries to do either.

Julia Cohen is a SESP junior. She can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].

The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.