Obama, Wen scale walls on global collaboration
- Source: Global Times
- [02:26 November 19 2009]
- Comments
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meets visiting US President Barack Obama in Beijing on Nov. 18, 2009.
Rather than teaming up to dictate global policy, the US and China should work together to help solve problems concerning all nations of the world, Premier Wen Jiabao told US President Barack Obama Wednesday on his last day in China.
"We believe Sino-US cooperation can play a unique role in advancing the establishment of the new international political and economic order, as well as promoting world peace, stability and prosperity," Wen noted.
That said, Wen stressed that a "Group of Two" approach isn't the answer to the world's problems, as China is still a developing country, and global decisions shouldn't be made by just two countries anyway, regardless of how big they are.
The meeting with Wen came before Obama flew to Seoul for the last leg of his Asian tour.
In his opening remarks earlier Wednesday, Wen stressed the significance of collaboration, echoing earlier sentiments by President Hu Jintao.
"The history of Sino-US relations has made it clear that cooperation benefits both sides, while
confrontation results in harm, and mutual trust brings progress, and suspicion causes setbacks," Wen said.
Cooperation is better than containment, dialogue is better than confrontation, and partnership is better than rivalry, Wen said.
The two sides also shared soft rhetoric on a trade relationship that has seen increasing friction in the past few months.
"China and the United States should work together to fight against protectionism in trade and investment," Wen said, adding that he hopes the US lifts its policy of restricting high-tech product exports to China.
Washington has taken note of China's concern over export controls to China and is willing to take measures and increase high-tech product exports to China, Obama said, adding that the US will properly handle bilateral trade friction so it doesn't harm the interests of the two countries.
And he said the United States appreciates China's efforts to adjust its economic structure, expand domestic demand, protect intellectual property rights and reform the renminbi's exchange rate regime.
Obama, who described US-China relations as having global significance, said coop-eration is crucial as far as major global issues such as economic recovery, climate change, and regional and global peace are concerned.
Wen and Obama also exchanged views on the Korean Peninsula situation, Middle East issues and the Doha round of world trade talks.
