Participants told The Epoch Times that whatever divides Europe and the Unites States today matters less than the threats giving them a reason to stay together.
PARIS—The eighth Paris Cyber Summit convened on June 2 and 3 at the Maison de la Chimie under the theme “The Transatlantic Reset,” focusing on how the United States and Europe can rebuild a shared digital agenda after years of regulatory friction and geopolitical shock.
The exchanges addressed a key question: how allies should assess the threats posed by China and Russia.
Sébastien Garnault, the summit’s founder, opened the gathering with a call for candid conversations among partners. He said he wanted the two days to settle “how we assess the threats, and how we are answering to the threats as allies.”
The invitation-only forum drew senior officials, regulators, and industry leaders from both sides of the Atlantic, among them figures from the U.S. Department of War, the FBI, NATO, the European Commission, France, Ukraine, Google, and CrowdStrike.
China and the ‘Long Game’
The American case rested on two years of warnings about Chinese intrusions into U.S. critical infrastructure. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has described campaigns designed to allow Beijing to disrupt vital functions at a moment of its choosing.
The operations known as Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon, both attributed to China, have reached telecommunications networks, energy utilities, and water systems in what officials call prepositioning rather than espionage, with the access often discovered years after it was established.
Todd Hemmen, deputy assistant director for cyber capabilities at the FBI’s Cyber Division, told the summit that American and European partners often read that threat differently.
“Where you might characterize China’s activity as surveillance, or as minimal,” he said, “we see it firmly as prepositioning for some future activity.”
He pointed to Salt Typhoon, identified in 2023 and 2024 but present in U.S. systems since around 2021, and to Volt Typhoon, which followed a similar pattern.
“They’re playing the long game,” he said, “and at some point that game leads to some kind of operational activity.”
