PRESIDENT Hu Jintao goes to Washington this week for a crucial summit with his US counterpart Barack Obama which will try to smooth the rocky relationship between the world’s two biggest economies, while trying to move beyond a long-running currency stand-off and nagging trade issues.
This is Hu’s first official state visit to the United States and it highlights the changing power structures in the global economy, as China matches its growing economic might with increased political influence on the world stage.
Hu will be in the US from Tuesday until Friday, and he will meet Obama on Wednesday. Obama and his wife are to host an official state dinner on Wednesday night for the Chinese president.
While both sides are keen for the visit to be a success to calm global fears about tensions between the two superpowers, it is not likely to be an easy meeting. Political discussions will be tricky, as both disagree sharply on how to resolve the nuclear crisis with Chinese ally North Korea.
Chinese vice-foreign minister Cui Tiankai insisted China and the US “have broad common interests and share the same goal on the Korean nuclear issue”.
Six-party talks involving both Koreas, China, the US, Russia and Japan were more “suitable” than the UN Security Council for solving the nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula.
North Korea caused panic in the region by shelling a South Korean island and by claiming progress in uranium enrichment, which could give it a second pathway to making nuclear weapons. Pyongyang walked out of the aid-for-disarmament talks in 2008 and Obama is likely to urge Hu to increase pressure on North Korea.
On economic issues, China has the upper hand as its economy continues to grow strongly – a poll last week showed that a majority of Americans thought, wrongly, that China was the world’s biggest economy.
The politically sensitive trade gap between the two countries stretched by 26 per cent in 2010 to €139 billion in China’s favour, data showed last week.
The widening gap is sure to bring renewed calls in the US for a revaluation of the yuan currency. Critics say China is keeping the yuan cheap to give its exporters an unfair advantage.
Meanwhile, Beijing has its own concerns about its holdings of US treasury debt.
China has the world’s biggest foreign exchange reserves at €2.2 trillion, an estimated two-thirds of which is invested in US assets, including treasury debt, and it will want to focus on this issue too.
“Regarding the security of China’s assets in the United States, if the US side can offer a positive statement on that, then of course we’d welcome that, and it’s an issue to which we’re paying attention,” vice-foreign minister Cui said.
Human rights will be on the agenda, though not as high as they might have been in days gone by. Obama has met five human rights activists for a briefing ahead of the visit: China expert Andrew Nathan, Chinese writer Zha Jianying, Paul Gewirtz, founder of the China Law Centre at Yale University, Bette Bao Lord, a writer and activist, and wife of former US ambassador to China Winston Lord, and Li Xiarong, a Chinese rights advocate since the 1980s now living in exile in the US.
Aware of the damage to China’s image that its poor human rights record causes, Beijing plans to screen short television advertisements in the US next week featuring Chinese celebrities to coincide with Hu’s visit. The ads will be aired on the giant screen in New York’s Times Square as well as on TV networks.
China’s growing military strength will form a backdrop to the talks. China conducted its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet earlier this month, a move that China denied was connected to US defence secretary Robert Gates’s visit.
Beijing insisted the stealth fighter jet test should not be seen as a threat, and China has no intention of challenging US military might in the Pacific.
Hu’s last visit to the US was not an official state visit and was disrupted by a protester from the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.