President Obama highlighted the importance of full adherence to the U.S.-China cyber commitments during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday at a side meeting in Paris at the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference, the White House said.
In September Presidents Obama and Xi reached an agreement prohibiting both country’s governments from supporting cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property (Defense Daily, Sept. 25).
Amid the start of the two-week conference, Obama met with President Xi “to reaffirm their shared determination to work together and with others to achieve an ambitious climate agreement at the Paris climate negotiations,” the White House said in a statement.
The administration highlighted the leaders also set priorities for U.S.-China relations in 2016 and “committed to continue narrowing differences and expanding practical cooperation on regional and global challenges.”
“Of course, as President Xi indicated, there are differences between our countries. That’s natural. But on issues like cybersecurity and maritime issues, I think President Xi and I have developed a candid way of discussing these issues,” Obama said before the bilateral meeting in official remarks.
“And our teams have found ways to work through these tensions in a constructive fashion. And we hope to build on that today,” he added.