China to host Obama in November
September 9, 2014, 7:23 am

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with U.S. president Barack Obama in The Hague, Netherlands, March 24, 2014 [Xinhua]

It will be Obama’s second visit to China since his last visit in November 2009, 10 months after taking office. Beijing has made it clear through recent statements on the Ukraine crisis, it is opposed to the US-led attempts by Western nations to isolate Russia.

Yang and Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice, held talks in Beijing on Monday to lay the groundwork for talks between Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, amid Washington’s renewed interest in East Asia.

“The current international environment has further highlighted the strategic significance for China and the United States to jointly build a new model of major country relations,” Yang told the top White House national security aide.

This is Rice’s first visit to China since she took office in July 2013.

Yang on Monday said the China-US relationship has maintained “overall stability” and Beijing will work to “constructively manage our differences on sensitive issues to ensure that the US-China relationship will continue to move forward”.

The two sides have been making steady progress in cooperation in economics, trade and environment protection and also in exchanges related to global hotspots like the Korean Peninsular nuclear issue, Iranian nuclear issue, Middle East, Afghanistan, South Sudan, he asserted.

The US national security aide said Obama “views this visit as an important milestone in the development of our important relationship”.

Rice has said she will take maximum advantage of the meetings with Chinese leaders and senior officials to advance the preparations to Obama’s visit.

“The president asked me to travel here – even as there are many other issues on our shared global agenda – because of the priority he attaches to US-China relations,” she told Yang.

China and the US are locked in competition over trade and over military and diplomatic influence in the region.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been embroiled by the recent escalating violence in the Middle East, tried hard last month to reassure that the United States is still committed to its rebalance to Asia policy first launched by President Barack Obama in 2009.

Meanwhile, China has repeatedly accused the US of trying to profit from the historical maritime territorial disputes between China and some of its neighbors.

“The relationship between China and ASEAN has maintained good development momentum and we oppose the playing up of the so-called South China Sea tensions,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the ASEAN Regional Forum last month referring to what it called Washington’s “meddling”.

Rice is in China from Sunday to Tuesday and is scheduled to meet other Chinese leaders, including President Xi on Tuesday.

TBP and Agencies