Obama‚ Xi grapple with hard issues

Reuters

US President Barack Obama listens as Chinese President Xi Jinping answers a question following their meeting at the Annenberg Retreat, on Saturday.

REUTERS

RANCHO MIRAGE: US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping launched straight into discussing thorny issues at an informal summit and may delve deeper when they meet again today.

The two-day meeting at a desert retreat near Palm Springs, California, was meant to be an opportunity for Obama and Xi

to get to know each other, Chinese and US officials have said, and to inject some warmth into often chilly relations while setting the stage for better cooperation.

The first day yielded no major breakthroughs or concrete announcements. After more than two hours of discussions, Xi and Obama said they had agreed on the need to work together to tackle cyber-security issues, a major irritant in bilateral ties as US accusations of Chinese hacking intensify. They also agreed on the importance of improved military-to-military ties, an area hindered in the past by mistrust and poor communication.

“We are more likely to achieve our objectives of prosperity and security of our peoples if we are working cooperatively rather than engaged in conflict,” Obama told reporters.

Ties between Beijing and Washington have been buffeted in recent months by strains over trade disputes, North Korea, human rights and each country’s military intentions.

Obama said the two countries must strike a balance between competition and cooperation to overcome the challenges that divide them, and Xi pushed for a relationship that takes into account China’s ascendancy.

Xi is expected to voice discomfort over Washington’s strategic pivot toward Asia, a military rebalancing of US forces toward the Pacific that Beijing sees as an effort to hamper its economic and political expansion.

Obama and Xi are due to hold a total of more than five hours of talks in Sunnylands. Obama will be looking to build on growing Chinese impatience with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes, a shift that could bring Beijing closer to Washington’s position.

“I think it’s the most important meeting they’ll have in their tenure,” said Paul Haenle, former China director on the NSC. “The biggest problem with the relationship is that we haven’t had the deep and personal engagement at the very senior level that’s required now to move forward.