BEIJING - The U.S. and China began to re-engage Tuesday on issues including economic frictions after a months-long hiatus during President Barack Obama’s reelection and China’s installation of new leaders.
Chinese President Xi Jinping met Tuesday with visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew in the first highlevel exchange between the sides in six months and the start of a series of meetings that will test the potential for cooperation between the world’s first- and second-largest economies.
The two sides will discuss an ever-broadening agenda, from military cooperation to food safety, said Jin Canrong, an associate dean of the School of International Relations at Beijing’s Renmin University.
“China-U.S. relations are much more mature than they were before, but the atmosphere is still strained,” said Jin, who frequently consults with leading Chinese diplomats.
Xi and Lew met Tuesday amid misgivings in Beijing over Washington’s renewed focus on the Asia-Pacific region and concerns in Washington over China’s reluctance to pressure its erstwhile ally North Korea and allegations of Chinese state sponsored computer hacking.
However, both men stressed the importance of the U.S.-China relationship.
“The president is firmly committed to building a relationship of growing strength,” Lew told Xi during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China’s ceremonial legislature in central Beijing.
Lew said U.S. officials want to work with China to reduce trade and investment barriers and to “protect the work of our innovators” - a reference to complaints about Chinese copying of foreign goods from Hollywood movies to software and telecommunications technology. He said the U.S. government looks forward to China’s growth as a market for foreign goods.
Xi told Lew he attached “great importance” to ties with the U.S. and looked forward to more fruitful cooperation, but offered no specifics before reporters were ushered out of the meeting.
The two sides have “some differences” but said they have “enormous shared interests” and should “handle this relationship from a strategic and long-term perspective,” Xi said.
Lew also is scheduled to meet with new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang today. Treasury Department officials said that during his two-day visit he will raise issues including North Korea’s nuclear program, Asia-Pacific security and allegations of Chinese government-backed hacking.
A security firm, Mandiant, said last month that it traced electronic break-ins at more than 140 companies to a military unit in Shanghai. The Chinese government rejected the report and said it also is a victim of hacking, much of it traced to the United States.
The secretary’s visit marks the highest-level interaction between the sides since former defense secretary Leon Penetta’s brief trip to Beijing in September. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry plans to visit Beijing next month.
Xi has had more exposure to the U.S. than previous Chinese leaders, having traveled there a half-dozen times, and he sent his daughter to Harvard. The two sides now discuss issues ranging from humanitarian relief to shoring up the fragile global economic recovery.
Xi also is seen as a strong nationalist willing to defend what he considers China’s core interests whatever the cost to the country’s overseas reputation. China is locked in territorial feuds with Japan and several Southeast Asian nations that threaten to draw in the U.S. and has refused tofollow the West in efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria.
In an interview on Australian television last week, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said it is still too early to read Xi despite the hours he has spent with him in the U.S. and in China. Campbell said Xi was “about the most guarded individual that I interacted with.”
“Part of our relationship is based on trust and confidence, and very deep economic and cultural engagement, and part of it has clearcomponents of distrust and uncertainty,” Campbell said.
Xi is taking a safe course for his first trip abroad, heading next week to Russia on his first overseas visit as president. That will be followed by meetings in South Africa with heads of other emerging economies.
Xi isn’t scheduled to meet with Obama until a gathering of the Group of 20 nations next September in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Information for this article was contributed by Joe McDonald of The Associated Press.
Business, Pages 25 on 03/20/2013