Obama Talks With Hu Jintao, President Of China, While Plane Idles

WASHINGTON — The White House is signaling an improvement in relations between the U.S. and China amid news that the Chinese leader will attend a nuclear security summit in Washington later this month.

President Barack Obama told Chinese President Hu Jintao he welcomed the decision during an hourlong phone call Obama took Thursday night on Air Force One. The White House said afterward the summit will be an important opportunity for the U.S. and China "to address their shared interest in stopping nuclear proliferation and protecting against nuclear terrorism."

Obama also underscored the importance of working with China in ongoing discussions about Iran's nuclear program, the White House said.

Reports conflict on whether China is willing to consider new United Nations sanctions against Iran.

U.S. officials said this week that a Chinese representative committed to discuss specifics of a potential Security Council resolution in a phone call Wednesday with officials from the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. But one day later, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang reiterated the China's longtime stance of wanting the dispute settled through negotiations.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs wouldn't comment Friday on discussions with China, telling reporters only that the U.S. is "very pleased with the progress we've made."

China has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, and its support would be key to passing a resolution against Iran, which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power generation.

The U.S. and China have been looking to ease a recent spike in tensions over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the Dalai Lama's meeting with Obama at the White House. There is speculation that Hu's visit to Washington could also help avert another potential minefield: being labeled a "currency manipulator" by the U.S. Treasury Department because of its practice of pegging the yuan to the U.S. dollar, making Chinese exports cheap.

The Treasury Department is under pressure to make that assertion in a foreign exchange rate report due out April 15, the same week Hu attends the nuclear summit.

Gibbs said no decision has been made on whether to delay the report.

Comments

[vet-of4renwarz]

12:19 PM on 04/02/2010

Frenemy

[JaapDenHartog]

04:07 AM on 04/02/2010

A good read for today concerning China and Iran.

http://www.juancole.com

Friday, April 02, 2010
Obama Phones Hu over Iran Sanctions;
China Stresses Peaceful Resolution;
India Reviving Iran Pipeline Plan

As part of his press for increased sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear enrichment program, President Barack Obama called Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday. The US has few bargaining chips to induce China to play ball on Iran, which supplies 8% of China's imported petroleum. (For the importance of Iran to the Chinese economy see this Reuters article.) For China's energy needs in general, see Michael Klare at Tomdispatch.

One issue that has caused tensions between Washington and Beijing is US pressure on Beijing to revalue its currency, which economists consider undervalued. Artificially keeping the yuan low helps China's manufacturers to export their goods more readily, and hurts the manufactures of other countries (such as the US itself) that let their currencies float and be assigned a value by the market.

It may be that Obama will let the Chinese revaluation issue slide in order to get better cooperation on increased sanctions. If so, it would be a bad deal. Reviving US industries through more competitive exports is light years more important than ratcheting up sanctions on Iran, especially since the kind of sanctions that can likely get through the Security Council will be powerless to deter Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

[mike72]

06:17 AM on 04/02/2010

Yuan is not artificially low. It is trading at 1 dollar for 6.7 Yuan now. That is a 25% value increase for yuan since 2005. Strange enough, that is exactly how much US has been calling for Yuan to increase value in the last several years.

It is a political maverick on China. If it does not support US stands on Iran, US will keep calling on Yuan to revalue.

[Chinalover]

07:39 AM on 04/02/2010

The Yuan revaluation hooray by the US is a disguised attempt to inflate the US dollar and have China to blame. It is an indirect attempt to lower the US deficit by lowering the actual value of the dollar. It would cause inflation pressure in the US and the working poor of the US, already at crisis level, would be further squeezed. The careless disregard of its populace by the US government is astounding!

[iLoveGiraffes]

03:58 AM on 04/02/2010

It will make another good SNL skit .

[Draekia]

03:49 AM on 04/02/2010

China and the US working closer together to further each of their economic goals would be a powerhouse the world would likely not recover from for centuries. I only wonder if the egos that lead both learn this quickly enough to take advantage of the opportunities, or if it will become an economic war that will be trying for both with the very likely winner being very few in either nation.

[mike72]

06:23 AM on 04/02/2010

The relationship between US and China will not be rosy and will not be a bust. It will be filled with political ups and downs. They are connected from hips down but they will continue their bickering face to face.

Their relationship is suspicious correlated. You will never know when they are dancing and when they are fighting.

[mike72]

06:28 AM on 04/02/2010

Well the best way I would describe their relationship is:

The egomaniac (US) and his enabler (China). And the rest of the world are just their playthings.