WASHINGTON, April 21: China’s President Hu Jintao predicted stronger relations with the United States following a summit on Thursday with US leader George Bush, despite the lack of clear progress on major international problems and trade tensions between the powers.
After a carefully choreographed White House meeting — marred by a demonstrator who shouted at the Chinese leader — the two presidents pledged to work together to solve the Iran and North Korean nuclear disputes, but gave little indication how this would be done.
Mr Bush also failed to get a commitment over China’s huge 201.6 billion dollar trade surplus with the United States that has become a major domestic concern.
But Mr Hu said in a speech on Thursday that he expected a stronger relationship to develop from the summit and put across the message that China is not a strategic threat to the United States.
“I believe the meeting today was a very productive one and I look forward to a future China-US relationship that is more stable and more mature,” he said in the speech.
The United States and China must ‘respect each other, treat each other as equals and view differences in a proper context and manage them properly’, he added.
Concerns have been raised in Washington about China’s growing military might and its economic clout in Latin America and Africa, as well as Asia.
But Mr Hu said in the speech that China needs peace to pursue its own economic miracle.
“Let me tell you in explicit terms that China adheres to a path of peaceful development. And it’s formally committed to promoting development domestically, and maintaining world peace and promoting common development internationally,” he declared.
At the summit Mr Bush and Mr Hu agreed on the need to ease trade tensions and work together to keep the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea in check.
Mr Bush said the two countries would deepen cooperation ‘in addressing threats to global security, including the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, the violence unleashed by terrorists and extremists and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction’.
Yet the two produced no concrete sign of progress on a raft of issues separating their countries.
Mr Bush raised the possibility of a tough UN action against Iran over its alleged nuclear arms program. He urged Beijing to use its ‘considerable influence’ over North Korea to rein in Pyongyang’s weapons activities.
But after the summit, Mr Hu only stressed the need to ‘seek a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue’.
Mr Hu also acknowledged the six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal had run into ‘difficulties’ and called on all parties to display flexibility to allow the negotiations to resume.
On Taiwan, Mr Bush counselled China to avoid confrontation. Mr Hu responded with a vow to oppose Taiwan’s secession from the mainland ‘by any means’.
Mr Bush pressed US complaints about China’s currency, market access and rampant piracy — which critics say fuel the US trade deficit.
Mr Hu acknowledged ‘friction’ over economic relations, but promised only to ‘continue to advance the reform’ of the exchange rate and to extend market opening measures and copyright protection.
Mr Bush delivered another lecture on ‘the importance of respecting human rights and freedom’ in China, but Mr Hu was firm when asked in the Oval Office whether there would be democracy in his country.
“I don’t know what you mean by a democracy,” he replied. “But what I can tell you is that we always believe in China that if there is no democracy, there will be no modernisation.”
Stephen Hadley, the US national security adviser, said later that Mr Bush had presented a list of ‘six people who are in detention in China that he hoped would be released’.
The summit was carefully staged with an elaborate welcome that included a 21-gun salute on the White House lawn, a military band and an American Revolutionary-era fife and drum corps.
But Mr Bush was visibly embarrassed when a protester from the Falungong spiritual movement, which is banned in China, heckled Mr Hu as he spoke.
The woman, a reporter for the Falungong-founded newspaper Epoch Times, nearly drowned Mr Hu out as he made remarks, before she was hauled away by Secret Service agents.
She was charged with disorderly conduct and an obscure count of ‘willingly intimidating or disrupting a foreign official’, a spokesman said.
Mr Bush later expressed regret, telling Mr Hu: “This is unfortunate, I’m sorry that this happened,” according to the White House.
Outside, hundreds of Falungong supporters and pro-Taiwan and Tibet activists shouted for their causes. Pro-Beijing demonstrators hurled back their own slogans.
Analysts said that even if there had been no progress in major issues, the two leaders had at least deepened their understanding of each other.
“He tells me what he thinks, and I tell him what I think, and we do so with respect,” Mr Bush said.
For New York Times political analyst David Sanger, Mr Hu’s visit renewed an old predicament: “Just about every American president since Richard Nixon has confronted the fact that his influence over China is far more limited than he once hoped.
“President Bush is now facing that reality midway through his second term, at a moment when the Chinese clearly sense his weakness.” —AFP
