***

A couple hours after the screening question, I received the CNN email alert about the death of Lu Lingzi, the 23-year-old Boston University student from Shenyang, China killed in the Boston marathon bombing. She was the same age as my daughter Sally, who was also born and raised in China and speaks Chinese. It is impossible for parents to fathom how a child's life and dreams can be destroyed by senseless criminal violence. As her classmate Zheng Minhui said at Lingzi's Boston University memorial service: "Her dream was very simple. She wanted a not necessarily rich life, but a peaceful life, with a stable job, a happy family, and a lovely dog."

Lingzi was one of the 200,000 mainland Chinese currently studying in the U.S. -- and nearly 1 million who came before her -- whose big dreams and bright futures depend on mutual understanding, clear communications and real trust between the U.S. and China as nations and as people. I chair the advisory board of a student group called Global China Connection with branches on some 60 U.S. campuses and a membership that mixes students from China with American and international students interested in China. The group's mission statement is clear: Global China Connection is a student-run organization dedicated to fostering deep and trusting personal relationships among Chinese and non-Chinese university students. I believe the future of the U.S.-China relationship depends on these young people to help us overcome the inevitable friction between a rising global power and a reigning global power. When I travel on business in the U.S., I stop by campuses and talk with these students. I have met many, many like Lu Lingzi over the years. Sincere, decent and diligent Chinese who love their homeland but have great curiosity about and affection for America -- and dreams and ambitions that involve both countries.

The fantastic Internet cyber world that has brought the globe together in so many ways is now endangering those dreams. The fallout for Chinese in the U.S., and those working for American multinationals in China, during the Wen Ho Lee fiasco was serious but short lived. The accusations were aimed at an individual who had resided in the U.S. for some 35 years at the time of his arrest. But today's accusations and a large body of detailed and credible evidence point at Chinese state-sponsored cyber hacking and trade secret theft involving a Who's Who of American multinationals.

Whenever American business talks about China with the U.S. government these days, this is topic number one. Most Chinese officials and business people I meet are completely unaware of the scope of the problem. The news and evidence is blocked by Internet censors. The Chinese government's response so far has been to deny and dissemble, calling the accusations of state-sponsored Chinese cyber-theft "groundless accusations" with "ulterior motives." After Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew visited China in April and raised the cyber-hacking issue repeatedly, Qian Xiaoqing, deputy director of the state Internet Information Office told Reuters: "Lately people have been cooking up a theory of a Chinese internet threat, which is just an extension of the old 'China threat' and just as groundless."