(Bloomberg) — The U.S. and China announced agreement on broadanti-hacking principles aimed at stopping the theft of corporatetrade secrets though President Barack Obama pointedly said he hasnot ruled out invoking sanctions for violators.
|After a morning of meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping,Obama said the two governments pledged they won't condone hackingto steal commercial secrets, a first step toward resolving one ofthe biggest disputes between the two countries.
|"I raised once again our growing concern about cyberthreats,"Obama said during a joint White House news conference with Xi. "Iindicated it has to stop."
|The White House said last month it was considering economicsanctions on Chinese individuals and companies in response to astring of cyber-attacks against American businesses and governmentagencies.
|Xi said he and Obama agreed to step up prosecutions andcooperate on investigations of cybercrime, including creating ahotline between officials in the two countries.
|"We have broad common interests in the field of cyber, but weneed to strengthen cooperation and avoid confrontation," Xisaid.
|Industrial espionage
|The two sides agreed that neither government "will conduct orknowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property,including trade secrets or other confidential business information,with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies orcommercial sectors," according to a fact sheet released just beforethe news conference.
|It's unclear how the agreement will substantively affect U.S.companies and government agencies reeling from sophisticatedattacks alleged to have been carried out by the Chinese governmentor its proxies, including the theft of corporate information andmillions of health care and federal personnel records.
|Obama said the U.S. will be "watching carefully" if words arefollowed by action and didn't rule out the possibility of levelingsanctions against Chinese officials and companies in retaliationfor hacking.
|China denies being involved, saying it's a victim ofcyber-espionage itself and opposes hacking.
|Xi said the talks between his government and the U.S. reached"some new consensus" on the issue. He said cybersecurity "could bea new growth source rather than a source of contention between ourtwo countries."
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–With assistance from Mike Dorning, Angela Greiling Keane andJustin Sink in Washington.
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