Sino-US ties at new high:

Obama wraps up China trip

CHINA: US President Barack Obama ended the official part of his trip to China on Wednesday by meeting Premier Wen Jiabao, who emphasised that their two nations were better off as partners, not rivals.

The US President was to wrap up his maiden trip to the world’s most populous nation with a bit of tourism — a visit to the Great Wall, one of China’s most treasured landmarks — before heading to South Korea.

Obama and Wen hailed joint willingness to build a new, in-depth partnership as they sat down for discussions and a working lunch in Beijing, echoing comments made Tuesday by the US leader and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

“Dialogue is better than confrontation and partnership is better than rivalry,” Wen said in his opening remarks.

“I sincerely hope that by making this visit to China, Mr President, we will be able to take the comprehensive, cooperative relationship between the two countries to a new level.”

Obama noted that the Sino-US relationship was “now expanding to deal with a whole host of global issues in which US-China cooperation is critical”.

The US president — accompanied by his secretaries of state, commerce, energy and the country’s trade representative — had been expected to raise economic issues such as the yuan, which Washington sees as undervalued.

North Korea’s nuclear programme was also likely to be on the agenda. Wen last month made a rare visit to the reclusive state, where he was told by leader Kim Jong-Il that Pyongyang was willing to return to disarmament talks.

Obama held the bulk of his formal talks on Tuesday with Hu, after which the leaders of the world’s number one and three economies said they had agreed to pool their global clout to attack a number of tough issues.

The pair vowed to push for a climate change deal, called on North Korea to return to multilateral talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme and emphasised the need to resurrect the global economy from the depths of crisis. BEIJING, Wednesday, AFP