US President Barack Obama and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Thursday called for urgent steps to revive the world economy and agreed to work to prevent further military confrontations at sea.
"The two agreed that China and the US must work closely and urgently, as two of the worlds leading economies, to stabilise the global economy by stimulating demand at home and abroad, and get credit markets flowing," the White House said in a statement after the two held a meeting.
-- Two sides to work to get credit markets flowing
-- Need for frequent, high level military exchanges cited
-- Talks touch on North Korea, Sudan, Tibet
Tensions between the United States and China rose over a weekend incident in the South China Sea in which five Chinese ships jostled with a US Navy surveillance vessel. The United States has said its ship, the Impeccable, was in international waters. But Beijing has said the US ship was in the wrong and Chinese naval officers have argued that it violated their countrys sovereignty.
After meeting on Wednesday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Yang visited the White House on Thursday to meet with Obama and National Security Adviser General James Jones. During Obamas 45-minute meeting with Jones and Yang, Jones raised the issue of the South China Sea incident.
Obama "stressed the importance of raising the level and frequency of the US-China military-to-military dialogue in order to avoid future incidents," the White House said. A US Navy destroyer, the USS Chung-Hoon, began escorting the Impeccable on Wednesday in a move to prevent any repeat of the weekend incident, US defence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The destroyer, armed with missiles and torpedos, provides robust protection for the unarmed Impeccable, whose mission is to search for submarines and other undersea threats. Yang, addressing a Washington think tank earlier in the day, did not discuss the naval confrontation and instead focused on the global economic crisis. Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend next monthss summit in London of the Group of 20 major developed and emerging economies.
Ahead of that meeting a rift has opened between the United States, which has been calling for aggressive economic stimulus steps, and some European countries wary of that approach. Yang said "better co-ordination" was needed among China, the United States and other countries that have announced stimulus plans.
Obama said he would work with China and other countries to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program and told Yang he was concerned about Pyongyangs missile program. Obama urged Yang to help put pressure on Sudans government after it expelled aid groups helping to provide food, shelter and protection to 4.7 million displaced people in Darfur.
During the meeting, Obama raised the sensitive issue of Tibet, saying he hoped there could be a dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lamas representatives. The Nobel Prize-winning Dalai Lama marked March 10 as the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule that resulted in his exile to India. China, which prides itself on bringing economic development to Tibet, accused the United States of meddling in its affairs.