Chinese firms join cyber security forum in US

Johnson acknowledged that the US government does not have all the answers or all the talents needed for securing the cyberspace.

So, seemingly as part of his effort, Johnson's department has a booth at the trade show, manned by US federal employees flown in from Washington DC, to engage people in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco.

However, some local companies at the event have resorted to bashing on other countries in a way to engage potential customers.

Xinguang Xiao, chief technology officer at Antiy Labs, a Chinese company specializing on antivirus engines, has been at the RSA event five times.

Xiao remembers a moment during a pervious event when he went into arguments with people from local vendors, on who has been on the offense in cyberspace and who else may be on the defense, the United States or other countries, or the rest of the world.

He used to have a number of US customers, and business seemed to be good. But he found it hard to avoid the hurt from China bashers.

Xiao has continued to come to the RSA event. Despite the possibility that there might not be new US customers coming up his way, he promised that he and his team from Beijing would be the most hard-working among all exhibitors, so as to keep updated about the industry's trend.

Xiao and Antiy is appreciated by Zhong Wang, vice president of Hillstone Networks, a firewall builder originated in Beijing and with an office in Silicon Valley.

Wang believes that Chinese cybersecurity businesses like Antiy and Hillstone can thrive and will be increasingly international because they have strong focus, on what they are best at.

"We have a lot in common," he said.

On the exhibition floor, there are competition for visitors, but everybody seems to be on the same page going against cyber threats.

During his keynote speech, Secretary Johnson said he was in China two weeks ago and realized that "the US and China have a vested interest in working together to address shared cyber threats, and making progress on our differences."