US, China to curb cyberspying

Presidents Obama and Xi agree that the USA and China won’t steal corporate secrets from each other, but the wording is so full of loopholes that CISOs shouldn’t take too much comfort in the pact for quite a while.

“Still, there’s a long way to go”, the source said.

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping after speaking during a state arrival ceremony for the Chinese president, Friday, September 25, 2015, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. The negative list includes industries in which foreigners can not invest.

China is already the world’s largest carbon emitter, but its status as a developing country has meant it is under no obligation to promise carbon cuts, a situation that has irked USA politicians and other industrialized nations.

Xi said China wanted disputes to be settled peacefully and respects freedom of navigation and overflight in the area that is crucial to global trade.

Obama said he described to Xi the “tools” the administration has to deter and punish cybercrime and cyberattacks. “I congratulate President Obama and his team for their work in negotiating this agreement, and I look forward to a new era of understanding in cyberspace”.

It also builds on the new cooperation on climate issues between the United States and China.

Also significant, Alperovich said, is the fact that the Chinese have agreed to provide responses to USA government requests for investigations.

Mr Obama thanked Mr Xi for introducing a cap-and-trade emissions trading system to limit greenhouse gas production. “We have the right to uphold our own territorial sovereignty and lawful legitimate maritime rights and interests”, Xi said.

Xi told reporters the two sides reached a consensus on the issue and stressed that Beijing is against cyber theft of any kind.

On climate change, an area where the two countries have been cooperating, China said it will commit $3.1 billion to help developing countries reduce carbon emissions, one of a series of measures taken with the U.S.to combat global warming.

Later Thursday, President Obama hosted Xi at a small working dinner across from the White House.

According to Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Robert Knake, the agreement will be enforced by something called CERT-to-CERT agreement – that is, direct cooperation between Chinese and American law enforcement officials.

The momentum is growing internationally to address climate change. The initiatives add to emissions curbs pledged previous year by China and the USA in a bid to forge a United Nations climate pact, scheduled to be sealed in Paris in December. Hundreds of people, including many young children, waved small USA and Chinese flags. When news of those plans appeared in the US media, China dispatched a high-level delegation, led by Meng Jianzhu, the secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, to work out a deal.