Asia-Pacific

Hu-Obama meet will ease strained ties, say experts

By Ma Liyao, Li Xiaokun and Wu Jiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-12 07:27

New York - President Hu Jintao and United States President Barack Obama are expected to meet during the Nuclear Security Summit for the first time since Sino-US ties became frayed over a series of contentious issues this year.

Hu is scheduled to arrive in Washington DC on Monday local time to attend the summit.

Since the leaders' last meeting in November, the two countries have clashed over such issues as Obama's endorsement of a $6.4-billion US arms sales deal with Taiwan, the US president's meeting with the Dalai Lama, Google's row with China's Internet regulators and the US pressure on China to appreciate its currency.

The upcoming meeting has been arranged after a series of painstaking moves to reduce the strains, including US deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg offering encouraging signals to China during a recent Foreign Press Center briefing, and Obama holding an hour-long phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart on April 2.

In another move, the US Treasury Department postponed a scheduled April 15 semi-annual currency report to the Congress, with some members demanding the report label China as a currency manipulator.

Although progress is not expected on concrete issues at the meeting, it will help mend ties, said Fu Mengzi, an American studies senior researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, adding that a face-to-face strategic dialogue between the two leaders will be helpful in easing tension.

"Disputes between the two countries over Taiwan, human rights and Tibet should not become obstacles for further cooperation," said Fu.

These topics will be mentioned, said Zhang Xiaodong, deputy chief of the Chinese Association for Middle East Studies. "But it is not likely that actual progress will be made on them (at this meeting)."

Washington may also continue to press for China's support on proposed UN sanctions on Iran's nuclear program. Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were not invited to the Nuclear Security Summit.

Washington is not expected to make any major offers to Beijing on the Iran issue, according to Fan Jishe, an American studies scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"The persistent attitude of the US is that the Iran nuclear issue is closely linked to China's interests. (The US will regard) whatever decision China makes is based on its own interests, not an exchange with the US," Fan said.

China will have to consider how it wants to be viewed by the rest of the world when it exercises its influence as a major power, said Deepti Choubey, deputy director of the nuclear policy program at Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

China Daily