In September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping and former U.S. President Barack Obama held a bilateral summit that established an international norm against cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property for commercial gain. This understanding marked the first time that Xi or any other Chinese leader recognized the U.S. position on the distinction between hacking for commercial purposes and hacking for national security purposes. The summit paved the way for the 2015 G20 leaders' communiqué on ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, a landmark moment in diplomacy and a key milestone in the global effort to establish bounds of responsible state behavior in cyberspace. The summit took place amid rising tensions between the United States and China, with the United States alleging that Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups had conducted an aggressive and extensive campaign of cyber espionage, stealing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property, trade secrets, and commercial data from Western firms, many of them American. The United States also alleged that the Chinese government was reinvesting this stolen intellectual property into its military capabilities and sharing it with Chinese firms to improve the competitiveness of their products against western counterparts. The United States took issue with this activity due to the potential negative impact on American businesses and the economy.
