US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao presented duelling trade agendas at a Pacific summit yesterday that underscored growing tensions between the world's two biggest economies.
Mr Hu and Mr Obama laid out competing visions of world trade in back-to-back speeches in Honolulu, and Obama then warned Hu in private that Americans were growing increasingly frustrated over what they see as unfair Chinese trade and currency practices.
Taking China to task with some of his sharpest language yet, Mr Obama used an address to CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to threaten punitive economic steps unless it started "playing by the rules", as he sought to reassert US influence in a region vital to America's interests.
Earlier, Mr Hu insisted on more clout for China as an emerging global power. He also made clear Beijing prefers to work through existing global trade architecture rather than allow itself to be subject to US-led efforts to pry open Asia-Pacific markets.
When the two leaders appeared together before reporters as they started face-to-face talks, both sought to play down differences that have tested US-China ties, stressing instead the need for cooperation to tackle global challenges.
But behind closed doors, Mr Obama took US complaints to a new level. It was unclear whether it was a serious effort to get Beijing to change its ways or, at least in part, political posturing aimed at US voters who will decide whether to give him a second term.
Mr Obama faces a tough 2012 re-election battle, in which Republican opponents accuse him of not being tough enough on China.
Mr Obama told Mr Hu the American people and US businesses were "growing increasingly impatient and frustrated with the pace of change" in the US-China economic relationship, senior White House aide Michael Froman told reporters.
Even as Mr Obama used his meeting with executives to highlight US concerns about a rising China, he asserted the United States was partly to blame for having lost ground and said his administration was working to change that.
"We've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades," he said. "We've kind of taken for granted - well, people will want to come here - and we aren't out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America," he added.
Hosting the APEC summit in his native Hawaii, Mr Obama said earlier the "broad outlines" of a deal had been reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional free trade pact being negotiated by the United States and eight other countries.
It was hailed by US officials as Mr Obama's signature achievement of the summit and a possible template for an eventual APEC-wide free trade zone. APEC's 21 members make up the world's most dynamic region and account for more than half of global economic output.
Mr Obama sees increased trade opportunities as an engine for job creation at home that could help him through a troubled 2012 re-election bid with the U.S. economy still struggling.
But Beijing remains wary of the evolving trade pact that Washington is seeking with some of China's neighbours. It is widely seen as part of a US drive to provide a counterweight to China around the Pacific Rim.
Reuters