Chinese and US President Met to Discuss Strengthening Bilateral Relations

The guest list is out for President Obama’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping (shee jihn-peeng) and it’s a high-powered mashup of Hollywood, diplomacy and big business.

However, Xi denied the Chinese state was behind cybertheft of USA corporate secrets and advised against politicising the issue.

“In the past, China has often said the right things and then done very little to implement its commitments”, he said in an interview. That all I consider to be progress.

In fact, while President Obama was making much of this anti-hacking pact he had signed with President Xi, he was also threatening to file complaints and take steps to impose economic sanctions against China if it does not follow its words with actions.

And we did not, at our level, have specific discussions of specific cases.

“I conveyed to President Xi our significant concerns over land reclamation, construction and the militarization of disputed areas, which makes it harder for countries in the region to resolve disagreements peacefully”, Obama said at a joint press conference. Those are tools generally that are not directed at governments; they are directed at entities or individuals that we can identify. “If you look at China, they’re doing nothing about it”. As it turns out, President Xi did make a statement about this, speaking in Chinese at the Xi-Obama news conference. I can’t guarantee the actions of every single American.

Addressing a United Nations summit on development, Xi said China would act “by putting justice before interests and joining other countries in a concerted effort to realize the post-2015 agenda”.

It doesn’t mean that we’re going it prevent every cyber-crime, but it does start to serve as a template whereby countries know what the rules are, they’re held accountable, and we’re able to jointly go after non-state actors in this area. Obama implied that he raised the issue strenuously in private.

– China and the United States should promote people-to-people exchange and consolidate the social basis for bilateral relations.

Over the past 60-plus years, China has provided 166 countries and global organizations with almost 400 billion yuan (US$63 billion dollars) worth of assistance, and dispatched over 600,000 aid workers, over 700 of whom have laid down their lives in helping the development of other countries, he said.

In January, Xi promised $250 billion in investment over 10 years in Latin America, which the United States has long considered its sphere of influence.

China and the US have been at odds in recent years over the role of military-backed exercises in cyberspace during peacetime.

Xi told reporters the two sides reached a consensus on the issue and stressed that Beijing is against cyber theft of any kind. He says cooperation between the two nations will benefit both countries while confrontation will lead to losses on both sides.

China strongly opposes and combats the cyber theft of trade secrets, Mr Xi said, and urged against the politicisation of the issue.

Rouhani arrived Saturday and immediately was encouraged by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to have Iran step up to help achieve political settlements to the grinding conflicts in Syria and Yemen, where Iran has influence.