Obama meets Wen after political transitions
CAMBODIA: President Barack Obama met Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
Tuesday, in the highest-level exchange between the two sides since the
US election and an engineered power transfer in China. Wen and Obama met
at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia, as tensions rise over maritime
territorial disputes in the region which are nagging the always
friction-prone relations between Washington and Beijing.
Both men stuck to familiar talking points in a short photo-op, and
ignored questions shouted by reporters about South China Sea showdowns
which have centre stage at the summit.
Obama said that, as the world’s two largest economies, China and the
United States had a “special responsibility” to work together to ensure
sustained and balanced growth and to establish “clear rules of the road”
on trade.
His comments were a veiled reference to the trade and currency
disputes, and issues such as intellectual property piracy and commercial
duties over which his, and previous, US administrations have haggled
with the Chinese.
Wen congratulated Obama on his re-election this month and sent the
regards of the man he referred to as China’s “newly-elected” leader, Xi
Jinping. Xi was installed as the head of the ruling Communist Party
after a tightly scripted party congress which culminated this month in
Beijing, and he is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as national President
next March.
Wen told Obama the two sides could work together on business,
economic and finance issues -- where they are intertwined -- to tackle
“the difficulties we have and resolve the differences and disagreements
between us”.
AFP
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