U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping said they made important progress in talks regarding cybertheft, agreements on climate change and North Korea denuclearization, but contrast of opinion proved over Chinese activities in the South China Sea.
Between the world's two biggest economies is just a start but could lead to real improvement on the cybertheft issue regarding how it well carry out. Obama announced the agreement at a joint news conference Friday September 25 with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
With expanding business ties, however, cyber espionage for commercial gain also has grew. Obama said neither Beijing nor Washington will “conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage.”
President Xi Jinping said he had reached a consent with Obama on cybercrimes, and that Beijing is to step up with an inspection in this area.
He said: “We will apply those, and whatever other tools we have in our tool kit, to go after cybercriminals either retrospectively or prospectively.” and he added that “I have to insist our work is not yet done.”
Also significant, Alperovich said, is the fact that the Chinese have agreed to provide feedback to U.S. government requests for investigations.
Mark MacCarthy, vice president for public policy at the Software and Information Industry Association, said the tech industry trade group agrees with Obama that the cybertheft of intellectual property must stop.
The U.S. has accused Beijing of backing Chinese hackers who steal trade secrets from American companies. Before the Xi summit, Obama called cybertheft by China "an act of aggression."
Last year the U.S. charged five officers in China's People Liberation Army for computer hacking and economic espionage against six U.S. companies, including Westinghouse, U.S. Steel and Alcoa.
The agreement may not be easy to enforce, particularly since it's often difficult to trace the source of cyberattacks and the Chinese government has never acknowledged a role in past attacks, said Betsy Page Sigman, a cybersecurity expert at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.