Beijing – China and the United States have engaged in public disputes about trade, human rights, military spending and energy security, but for just a moment late last year, their leaders put briefing books aside and agreed to talk privately.
With an aura of candor described as unusual for Chinese leaders, President Hu Jintao told President Bush that fighting political corruption, rural unrest, a widening wealth gap and severe pollution consumes nearly all his time. He said domestic problems left China with neither the will nor the means to challenge America’s dominance in world affairs, according to two Bush administration officials.
The overture – described as having improved Hu’s ties with Bush – is part of a Chinese effort to reduce, or at least to deflect, American anxiety about the country’s growing economic, political and military power.
When Hu travels to Washington this week for his first White House visit as China’s top leader, the question will be whether the improved chemistry between the heads of the world’s richest nation and its fastest-rising rival can enhance a relationship that seems to be stuck somewhere between tentative stability and stormy tension.
Officials seem fatigued by incremental talks on the divisive issues: controlling nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, China’s support for several resource-rich dictatorships, its gaping trade surplus, its poor human- rights record, and the always-delicate question of U.S. backing for Taiwan, which Beijing claims as sovereign territory.
Few expect that Hu will dispel that unease during his four-day visit. But this Chinese leader is seen as having decided that China’s overall foreign-policy objectives depend on a benign relationship with Washington.