“President Barack Obama announced on Friday that he had reached a ‘common understanding’ with Chinese President Xi Jinping on curbing economic cyber espionage, but threatened to impose U.S. sanctions on Chinese hackers who persist with cyber crimes,” according to Reuters .  

“The two leaders said they agreed that neither government would knowingly support cyber theft of corporate secrets or business information. But the agreement stopped short of any promise to refrain from traditional government-to-government cyber spying for intelligence purposes. That could include the massive hack of the federal government’s personnel office this year that compromised the data of more than 20 million people.”  

“Xi reiterated China’s denial of any government role in the hacking of U.S. corporate secrets and said the best way to address the problem was through bilateral cooperation and not to ‘politicize this issue.’ ‘Confrontation and friction are not the right choice for both sides,’ he said. China has routinely insisted that it too is a victim of cyber hacking.”