China calls in US tech firms

China has resumed work on a set of banking cyber security regulations it suspended earlier this year, reviving a potential source of friction with the US weeks before Xi Jinping makes his first trip to Washington as China’s president, sources said.

At a meeting last week in Beijing, officials from the China Banking Regulatory Commission told representatives from several western technology companies, including Microsoft, IBM and Cisco Systems they would seek opinions over the next month on a new version of the bank procurement rules, one of those present at the meeting said.

The previous regulations contained provisions that required Chinese banks to buy more domestic IT equipment and western tech vendors to disclose secret source code if they sell to lenders.