Cyberattacks must stop, Obama tells Chinese president Xi

President Barack Obama has said he had reached a "common understanding" with president Xi Jinping of China to combat "cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property," but made it clear that wide areas of disagreement remained over how to stop an escalation of Chinese cyberthefts and the possibility of a US response.

With Mr Xi standing beside him at a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, Mr Obama referred to the cyberattacks against American targets and said, "I indicated it has to stop."

But he hailed progress with China on climate change and the nuclear accord with Iran, and said both he and Mr Xi were committed to pressing ahead against the North Korean nuclear problem.

It was evident from the comments of both leaders they had not reached an agreement on China’s reclamation of islands in the South China Sea, which Mr Xi defended during his own remarks, saying Beijing supported the “freedom of navigation according to international law”.

Both men made an effort to demonstrate that the two countries had made progress on curbing cyberattacks, even while skirting direct references to some of the most contentious issues, including the US claim that China was behind the theft of security dossiers on roughly 22 million Americans from the Office of Personnel Management.

A joint statement issued by the White House indicated that the two leaders had agreed that “neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.” Mr Xi repeated those words, but said nothing of cyberespionage.

Mr Xi used the occasion to announce China will launch a national carbon cap-and- trade system in 2017 to help contain the country’s emissions. Such systems put limits on carbon emissions and open up markets for companies to buy and sell the right to produce emissions.– (New York Times service/Additional reporting by Reuters)