The Chinese cyberattacks on American businesses had to stop, Obama told Xi. If they didn’t, the United States had the next round of indictments ready to go and would move to sanctions. Xi agreed, but everyone in the room knew that by then, China had already collected enough U.S. intellectual property to last it well into the next decade. Chinese hackers had taken everything from the designs for the next F-35 fighter jet to the Google code, the U.S. smart grid, and the formulas for Coca-Cola and Benjamin Moore paint.
