Obama meets with old friends before flying back to Washington

President Barack Obama squeezed in a round of golfwith his old Honolulu crew before departing the Coachella Valley today,following two days of meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Conferring at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, Obama and Xiagreed Saturday to work on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, setting a goal oferasing 90 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2050, an amount that would add up toabout two years worth of current greenhouse gas levels.

Xi left Sunnylands at about noon Saturday, and drove in a motorcade backto Ontario International Airport. All traffic was cleared from a 40-milestretch of Interstate 10 for that motorcade.

The President played a morning round of golf with the old chums fromPunanou High School — Mike ramos, Greg Orme and Bobby Titcomb. A witness aidthe group was laughing and “generally having a good time by all appearances,”according to a pool reporter.

The president was to drive to Palm Springs International Airport for ascheduled 10:30 a.m. flight back to Washington.

According to the agreement between the U.S. and China, the two nationshave “agreed to work together and with other countries through multilateralapproaches that include using the expertise and institutions of the MontrealProtocol to include (hydrocarbons) within the scope of UNFCCC and its KyotoProtocol provisions for accounting and reporting of emissions.”

The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change.

On Friday, Obama and Xi discussed cyber security during their firstmeeting.

“What both President Xi and I recognize is that because of theseincredible advances in technology that the issue of cyber security and the needfor rules and common approaches to cyber security are going to be increasinglyimportant as part of bilateral relationships and multilateral relationships,” Obama said.

“In some ways, these are uncharted waters and you don’t have the kindsof protocols that cover military issues for examples and arms issues wherenations have a lot of experience in trying to negotiate what’s acceptable andwhat’s not.”

National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told a media gathering at PalmSprings’ Westin Mission Hills hotel that Obama and Xi discussed the broadaspects and potential ramifications of distrust caused by long-term Chinesecyber-hacking.

“The specific issue that (Obama and Xi) talked about (Friday) is theissue of cyber-enabled economic theft — theft of intellectual property andother kinds of property in the public and private realm in the U.S. by entitiesbased in China,” Donilon said.

“(Obama) went through this in some detail,” Donilon said. “(Obama)asked the Chinese government to engage on this issue and understand that … ifit continues to be this direct theft of U.S. property, that this was going tobe a very difficult problem in the (U.S. and China’s) economic relationship andwas going to be an inhibitor to the relationship really reaching its fullpotential.”

Donilon said the critical point of the conversation was that itdemonstrated cyber security was now a keystone in unencumbered U.S.-Chineserelations.

“It is not an adjunct issue,” Donilon said. “It’s an issue that isvery much on the table at this point.”

Speaking through an interpreter, Xi said “the Chinese government isfirm in upholding cyber security and we have major concerns about cybersecurity.”

Xi said he noticed “a sharp increase in media coverage” of cybersecurity in the days before his meeting with Obama, that might “give peoplethe sense or feeling that cyber security as a threat mainly comes from China orthat the issue (of) cyber security is the biggest problem in the U.S.-Chinarelationship.

“We need to pay close attention to this issue and study ways toeffectively resolve this issue,” Xi said. “This matter can actually be anarea for China and the United States to work together … in a pragmatic way.”

Obama and Xi additionally tackled such thorny questions as North Korea’snuclear program.

Xi — who became China’s president in March — met with Obama last year,when he was China’s vice president.

He expressed the belief that he and Obama see “that to avoid … thistrap of rivalry between a rising power and an established power, that it’simportant to put in place … bilateral mechanisms that allow them to deal withthe greatest sources of instability and competition.”