Describing ties with China as “never more important to our collective future,” President Obama on Tuesday mixed praise for Chinese economic triumphs with gentle prodding on its currency, human rights, and Tibet.
Talks in Beijing with Chinese leader Hu Jintao produced pledges of cooperation on climate change, the economy and even military relations but yielded no breakthroughs on the many global headaches that Washington wants Beijing to help relieve.
A stiff joint appearance by Obama and Hu in the Great Hall of the People overlooking Tiananmen Square crystallized the state of the relationship between the two world powers: increasingly important to both countries, but also curiously bereft of warmth or intimacy.
Obama and Hu each read out a statement, standing impassively while the other spoke. At the end of what was billed as a news conference, the two presidents left without taking a single question, hurrying away from a podium decked with Chinese and American flags.
Chinese state-run television carried the joint appearance live, including Obama’s pitch for “universal rights” and talks between Beijing and Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The broadcast contrasted with limited Chinese media coverage of Obama’s tightly choreographed town hall-style meeting with Chinese students in Shanghai on Monday.
