Article Posted on : - May 08, 2012

WASHINGTON (PTI): The US and China have agreed to work together on countering cyber threat.

"Because the US and China have developed technological capabilities in this arena, it's extremely important that we work together to develop ways to avoid any miscalculation or misperception that could lead to crisis in this area," Leon Panetta, US Defence Secretary, told reporters at a joint Pentagon news conference with his visiting Chinese counterpart General Liang Guanglie.

Earlier Liang said the two countries have agreed to work on the cyber field.

"In our discussion we also talked about the possible ways that China and US can jointly work on to try to find ways to strengthen the cyber security. Although that we did not touch upon the details or technical issues on this -- in this regard. We will leave that to experts," Liang said.

Liang, responding to a question, differed with the allegations that most of the cyber-attacks on the US comes from China.

Cyber-attacks, he said, is really important and been attached great importance by all the nations of the world.

"It concerns the securities in many areas, including the politics, the economy, the military and people's livelihood. For example, you have a certain sum of deposit in the bank.Well, this bank account was hacked by other people, and your money was stolen. This concerns our personal life. Therefore, I believe it is correct for all the nations to pay such great attentions to cyber security," he said.

Panetta said both the US and China have developed advanced technology with regards to the cyber arena.

"And it's true, as the general pointed out, that we agreed that obviously there are other countries, there are hackers, there are others that are involved in some of the attacks that both of our countries receive," he said.

"I appreciate the general's willingness to see if we can develop an approach to having exchanges in this arena in order to develop better cooperation when it comes to cyber," Panetta said.