Opening a two-day summit, President Barack Obama drew attention to contentious economic and cybersecurity issues Friday night as he warmly received Chinese President Xi Jinping to a California desert estate for high-stakes talks.
Under a shaded walkway as temperatures surged above 100 degrees, the two leaders — in white shirts and suit coats but no ties — greeted each other and walked side by side to start their first in-person meetings since Xi took office in March.
“Our decision to meet so early (in Xi’s term) signifies the importance of the U.S.-China relationship,” Obama said. He noted the unusual setting and said he hoped for “more extended” and informal talks that will lead to a “new model of cooperation” between countries.
Previewing their talks, Obama said the United States is seeking an “economic order where nations are playing by the same rules and where the United States and China work together on issues like cybersecurity.” Obama said he would also stress the importance of human rights, another sensitive issue with the Chinese.
For his part, Xi did not mention cybersecurity, human rights or North Korea, another area of potential tensions between the two powers.
Speaking through a translator, Xi said both leaders were “meeting today to chart the future of U.S.-china relations.” He added that the world has “reaped huge benefits” for the relationship between both countries.
While the summit was billed as an informal meeting, the first round of talks looked and felt like a standard diplomatic encounter. Obama and Xi sat on opposite sides of a long rectangular table, each flanked by about a dozen aides. Pairs of U.S. and Chinese flags were stationed at the head of the table and note-takers sat off to the side.
U.S. manufacturers have long contended that China is manipulating its currency to gain a trade advantage. The U.S. trade deficit with China is the largest with any single nation. The U.S. government, however, has declined to label China a currency manipulator in an effort to narrow the trade deficit through negotiation rather than confrontation.
On the issue of cybersecurity, the U.S. has started bringing its complaints about persistent Chinese computer-hacking into the open after years of quiet and largely unsuccessful diplomacy. It has accused Beijing’s government and military of computer-based attacks against America. While there have been no actual admissions of guilt, Chinese leaders have started acknowledging there is a problem and U.S. officials say the Chinese seem more open to working with the U.S. to address it.
But China has asserted they, too, are often the victim of cyberattacks, including those that could be emanating from the U.S. — a line of argument that could be emboldened by new revelations that the U.S. extensively scours the Internet usage of foreign nationals overseas.
The two leaders were meeting at the 200-acre Sunnylands estate just outside Palm Springs, Calif.
Obama arrived late in the day at the estate on the edge of the Mojave desert. Xi arrived in California Thursday following a trip to Latin America, a region where China is seeking to expand its trade and influence.
U.S. officials see Xi, who took office in March, as a potentially new kind of Chinese leader. He has deeper ties to the U.S. than many of his predecessors and appears more comfortable in public than the last president, Hu Jintao, with whom Obama never developed a strong personal rapport.
Already the White House is encouraged that Xi agreed to the unusual California summit. The talks will be void of the formal pageantry that Chinese leaders often expect during state visits at the White House.
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