BEIJING, November 11 (TSR) – Chinese President Xi Jinping held an informal urgent bilateral meeting with visiting U.S. President Barack Obama in Beijing on Tuesday evening.
Obama is in China for a state visit and the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting, which ended the same day.
The two-day meeting concluded Tuesday afternoon, with APEC member economies approving a roadmap for APEC’s contribution to the realization of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).
Before the bilateral meeting, the two heads of state had dinner and a private walk with their respective translators at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in central Beijing according to China state news agency, Xinhua.
Hoping Obama’s visit will achieve fruitful results, President Xi Jinping schooled the U.S. President about respect of diversity, acceptance of differences and China’s pursuit of peace and harmony.
“The governments of China and the United States should properly handle their differences and act as a stabilizer of bilateral relations”, said Chinese President Xi Jinping to his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama, as the latter was being briefed on the centuries-old history of Zhongnanhai.
“Differences between the two countries are unavoidable but they are not the mainstream of the bilateral relationship”, Xi said.
“China and the U.S. have different national conditions”, he explained, “different history and different culture as well as different paths of development. Chinese people cherish national independence, unity and dignity. The Chinese government must comply with the people’s will, firmly safeguard national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, maintain ethnic unity and social stability and unswervingly pursue the path of peaceful development.”
“To understand China today and predict China in the future, one has to know China’s past and culture and that the “gene of traditional Chinese culture” is deeply entrenched in the mentality of modern Chinese and the Chinese government’s governance strategy”, the Chinese president noted.
“It is important to learn about China’s modern history in order to understand the Chinese people’s current aspirations and the path forward they have chosen”, Xi added.
Xi briefed Obama on China’s efforts in comprehensively deepening reform, advancing rule of law and strengthening the building of its ruling party.
“We have found a development path suitable for China’s national conditions, which is the socialist path with Chinese characteristics,” Xi told Obama, “We will unswervingly follow it.”
“The two sides should understand and respect each other and live in harmony while keeping their diversities”, Xi said.
After the walk, the two leaders held their bilateral meeting which lasted for nearly 5 hours exchanging views on Sino-U.S. ties, on global economy, regional security, international rules and norms, human rights and politics, and other mutual concerns.
President Xi Jinping urged President Barack Obama to jointly shape, share and push forward a clear strategic target of building a new model of China-U.S. relations.
“We should not let the new model stay as a concept or stop at its early harvest. We should push it forward,” said Xi.
A good China-U.S. relationship is in the interests of both countries and conducive to the Asia-Pacific and the world, Xi said, pointing out that leaders of both countries share this strategic understanding and long-term perspective.
“China and the U.S. should build their relations step by step. The U.S. president’s visit to China boasts an important opportunity to push forward such a relationship”, Xi said.
President Obama concurred with President Xi. Both pledged to push forward a new type of major-country relations between the two countries.
Obama said that the U.S. is ready to work with China to realize this goal and that he is willing to exchange views with the Chinese president on a wide range of issues in a timely manner, taking relations between China and the United States to a higher level.
“Strengthening cooperation between the two countries – which have seen their interests highly integrated – could benefit people in both countries and the world by and large”, President Obama said, noting that the U.S. and China boast the world’s two largest economies and two energetic and innovative peoples.
“China’s stability and development will benefit the world and bring more opportunities to the United States and the bilateral cooperation”, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, concurring with Obama.
According to Xi, he is glad to see that both sides have achieved considerable early harvest on their drive to build a new type of relationship between major countries thanks to joint efforts from both sides, who maintained close contacts via telephone calls and correspondents.
The efforts resulted in both China and the U.S. gaining more understanding and are holding higher expectations over the concept of the new type of major-country relations, Xi said.
The Chinese president emphasised that the two leaders should maintain regular and close communications and exchange candid and in-depth views on fundamental issues.
“Only in this way (could the two countries) comprehensively enhance mutual understanding, trust and respect, and steer clear of strategic misjudgments,” Xi said.
Xi also called on both countries to expand pragmatic cooperation, with a special focus on actively promoting pathbreaking collaborations.
“Communication and coordination on international and regional affairs should also be enhanced in order to jointly contribute to world peace, stability and prosperity,” Xi said.
“When China and the U.S. work together, we can become an anchor of world stability and a propeller of world peace,” Xi added.
The New York Times reported that during the 48-minute press conference which the state-run Chinese television station CCTV did not broadcast, President Xi bluntly warned the United States and other foreign countries not to interfere in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong which was started by foreign funded Occupy Central.
In a rare question-and-answer session after the presidents delivered their statements, Xi dismissed the protests as illegal, as response to a question given to President Obama about rumors in the Chinese media and other alternative outlets that the United States is fomenting the unrest there.
“Hong Kong’s affairs are exclusively China’s internal affairs, and foreign countries should not interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs in any fashion,” Xi declared. “It goes without saying that law and order must be protected in any place.”
President Obama said he had assured Mr. Xi that the United States had nothing to do with the protests in Hong Kong. “These are issues ultimately for the people of Hong Kong and China to decide,” he said of the protests demanding fully democratic elections, though he voiced support for the right of free expression.
According to NYT, President Xi initially appeared to ignore two questions from their reporter: “whether China feared that the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia represented an effort to contain China, and whether China would ease its refusal to issue visas to some foreign correspondents in light of a broader visa agreement with the United States”.
The Chinese leader declared that the visa problems of news organizations, including The Times, were of their own making. He explained that China protects the rights of media organizations, but that the organizations need to abide by the rules of the country.
In a Chinese passage and metaphor that was not translated into English to describe the travails of The Times and other media organizations, the president said, “the Chinese say, ‘Let he who tied the bell on the tiger take it off’” — which can mean according to NYT, “The one who created the problem should be the one who solves it.”
“When a certain issue is raised as a problem, there must be a reason. When a car breaks down on the road, perhaps we need to step down and see what the problem is,” Xi said to the press, and dismissing the foreign news media’s allegations that they were being penalized for unfavorable news coverage of Chinese leaders and their families.
In general, the American leader’s references to human rights were carefully calibrated such as refusal to recognize a separate Taiwan or Tibet according to The New York Times.
President Obama praised China for its role in nuclear negotiations with Iran, its response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and its dealings with a nuclear-armed North Korea but played down a recent wave of virulently negative coverage of him and the United States in China’s state-run media the article said.
Tough press coverage, the U.S. President said, acknowledging that it comes with the territory of being a public official, whether in China or the United States.
“I’m a big believer in actions, not words,” he said.
