The U.S. - China summit in California is over but the two sides remain divided on the issue of cyber security.
President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart successfully discussed a wide-range of topics including climate change and North Korea's nuclear program at the summit in California last week but the cyber security issue remained unresolved.
The two leaders spent eight hours together interacting and building a bond between the two countries. Officials from both the sides described the summit between the two leaders as 'successful.' However, the cyber security issue still remains unsolved though not untouched.
Summarizing the summit for the reporters, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi said that the leaders had "an unprecedented" interaction and "did not shy away from differences".
It seems the two sides skated over touch y issues and focused on building relationships.
Both agreed to reject North Korea's effort to be a nuclear-armed state. The two countries also vowed to reduce emissions of hydro fluorocarbons.
The U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said that Xi "acknowledged" how important the cyber security issue was to Washington and the U.S. leader warned that cyber hacking was a theft of U.S. intellectual property and was "going to be a very difficult problem in the economic relationship".
Yang denied China's hand in any cyber attack on the U.S.
"Cyber security should not become the root cause of mutual suspicion and frictions between our two countries. Rather, it should be a new bright spot in our co-operation," said Yang Jiechi.
Just ahead of the summit, one of the top Republican lawmakers had urged the U.S. president to be tough with Xi over the recent cyber security attacks where the U.S. cyber security watch said that China was hacking into U.S.'s systems and stealing confidential information from the government and business firms.
"China's rampant theft of American intellectual property and the jobs that come with it is holding back our economy and impacting our competitiveness around the world," said the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), according to the Fox News.
"China needs to see real consequences for their actions," said Rogers.
The two countries are likely to be seen playing the cyber security blame-game in the coming months and years unless the two sides dare to discuss the issue in detail.
