Obama invites China’s Hu for state visit
CANADA: US President Barack Obama has invited Chinese President Hu
Jintao for a state visit, a US official said on Saturday, as the two
powers seek to narrow economic and political differences. The date of
the state visit, which will be only the third hosted by Obama since he
took office in January 2009, has not been set, White House adviser
Jeffrey Bader told reporters on the sidelines of a G20 summit in
Toronto.
Hu accepted the invitation, Bader added.
The announcement came a week after China began to address one of the
disputes that has bedeviled their relationship this year, ending the
yuan’s da facto peg to the dollar that had been in place since mid-2008.
The United States wants China to allow the yuan to rise more rapidly
to help shrink Washington’s trade deficit. US lawmakers accuse China of
keeping its exports artificially cheap and stealing US jobs.
Obama told Hu he welcomed China’s move toward greater currency
flexibility and noted that Beijing’s “implementation of it was very
important,” Bader said.
“The president stressed the need for balanced and sustainable growth
and the role that China can play in achieving balanced and sustainable
growth,” he said, adding that Obama also called for a level playing
field on trade.
Hu also extended a hand of cooperation to Obama in their meeting,
saying China sought a closer relationship with the United States and
that the two had already moved closer.
“We also want to strengthen the communication and coordination with
the United States on major regional and international issues,” he said.
The official Xinhua news said Hu told Obama that China had no
intention of pursuing a trade surplus with the United States and had
been actively increasing its imports from America.
Hu called on the United States to refrain from protectionism and to
gradually reduce barriers to high-tech exports to China in order to
achieve “healthy and balanced bilateral economic and trade relations”,
according to Xinhua.
China and the United States should stick to the principle of dealing
with trade frictions through dialogue on an equal footing, Xinhua quoted
the Chinese president as saying.
Hu said the world economy faced uncertainty and potential instability
despite the unfolding recovery.
“The European sovereign debt issue is a cause for concern and the
world cannot afford to underestimate its impact on global economic
recovery,” Xinhua paraphrased Hu as saying.
In a separate briefing on the sidelines of the summit, Chinese
officials served up a reminder the world’s third-largest economy resents
being pressured to change policy.
Toronto, Sunday, Reuters |