The United States and China had constructive discussions on the contentious issue of cyber attacks, a senior US official said at the conclusion of the first working group meeting on it.

The meeting, a sub dialogue of the fifth US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which kicks-off on July 10, has generated much interest as it is being held in the backdrop of public disclosures of widespread NSA electronic surveillance and intelligence collection by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“I think, I can say we had constructive discussions with our Chinese counterparts at the cyber working group today on a range of cyber issues, including norms of state behaviour in cyberspace,” a senior administration official told reporters during a conference call yesterday.

Christopher Painter, coordinator for cyber issues and Dai Bing, senior Foreign Ministry official led the talks for US and China respectively.

“Both sides made practical proposals to increase cooperation and build greater understanding and transparency between the two sides. We also raised issues concerning cyber-enabled economic theft,” said, who was part of the day long dialogue at the State Department.

He added that meeting will be the start of a substantive and a sustained discussion between both the countries on cyber issues.

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