China ready for deal with United States on cybercrime, Xi says in Seattle

“Stop the genocide!” as protesters block the road, a long line of Seattle police in front of them, at Fifth Avenue and Olive Way outside the Westin in downtown Seattle as Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with USA political and business leaders Tuesday.

Xi, delivering a keynote address to some 650 business executives and other guests in Seattle, touched on a litany of issues that have strained U.S.-China ties.

Xi kicked off his first state visit to the USA with a rare speech to an American audience, a gathering of business executives in Washington state, a regular haunt of Chinese leaders and his country’s No. 1 trading partner among the 50 states.

“We want to see more understanding and trust and less estrangement and suspicion”, he said in the speech, given on the first day of his state visit to the US.

“It is the hope of people of both countries that China and the United States will work together to build a new model of major-country relationship of no-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation”, Xi said in a written statement delivered at the airport upon arrival. “This has nothing to do with power struggle”.

“The Chinese government will not in whatever form engage in commercial thefts or encourage or support such attempts by anyone”, Xi vowed.

“The Chinese are anxious about an open Internet and want to control information”, said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Center for Strategic and global Studies. And he said China wanted to start “a high-level joint dialogue mechanism with the United States on fighting cybercrimes”.

White House officials have said they expect to work with China during the state visit on developing consensus global cyber norms.

The dinner was hosted by the National Committee on China-US Relations and the US-China Business Council.

By contrast, hacking attacks on the USA , said to be directed by Beijing, and China’s moves to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea have been sore spots.

U.S.-China co-operation on climate-change has been a warm and fuzzy point of relations between the superpowers.

The trip comes at a time when China’s economic growth has slowed considerably, and when the communist nation is overhauling its economy to put more emphasis on consumer spending and less on exports and often-wasteful investment in factories, real estate and infrastructure such as railways and airports.

Xi will spend his first day in the U.S.in a Seattle hotel, where talks between five USA governors and six of their Chinese counterparts will take place over issues that include improving energy efficiency in buildings, modernizing electrical grids and commercializing renewable energy. Those attacks, along with cyberattacks on American tech firms, have led President Barack Obama to hint that sanctions may be imposed against China if these actions continue.

“But this is only a problem in the course of progress”, Mr Xi said. Governors from five USA states m… So talking about obstacles to doing business in China is hard when these companies are making more than they’ve ever made here.

Xi’s visit will immediately follow that of Pope Francis, keeping the White House staff on high alert.

It is the “duty of the government”, Xi said, to prevent “massive panic from happening”, and “China’s stock market has reached the phase of self-recovery and self-adjustment”.

Xi on Wednesday is set to tour Boeing’s large airplane production plant in Everett and travel to Microsoft’s headquarters.