SEOUL, South Korea — President Barack Obama will be focused on one leader in particular among those gathered for the Group of 20 summit: Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Obama’s meeting with Hu today brings into focus a global debate over how to spur economic growth and balance trade relationships between exporters such as China and importers such as the United States. It will be the seventh time Obama has held talks with a Chinese leader since he took office, highlighting the importance of ties with the world’s fastest- growing major economy.
“If you’re going to deal with the global economy and global economic growth, if you’re going to deal with security concerns in the region, if you’re going to deal with energy and climate, China has got to be a partner on those issues,” U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Washington before Obama’s trip.
The G20 summit comes amid a 10-day trip to Asia in which Obama has emphasized how the region’s role in the global economy benefits the U.S. He stopped in India and Indonesia and travels Friday to Yokohama, Japan, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
While in Seoul, the president is seeking to complete a revised free-trade agreement with South Korea that has been held up for more than two years as negotiations continue over automobile and beef imports from the U.S.
At the top of Obama’s agenda with Hu will be differences on efforts to shrink current-account gaps as a way to ease friction over the value of China’s currency. The U.S. is pushing China to let the yuan appreciate faster to curb its record trade surplus.
“The most important thing is whether or not the Chinese are going to support this idea,” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
