BEIJING — President Barack Obama and China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, held an unscheduled meeting Saturday at the end of an Asian forum, after a week when the United States made it clear that it was re-engaging fully in the region and not willing to cede influence in Asia.
Although the meeting in Indonesia touched on delicate topics — the United States’ demands for currency reform and China’s festering territorial disputes with its neighbors — the most notable aspect of the meeting was that it happened after bold diplomatic moves that startled Chinese leaders.
After what he said was a “very short” meeting, Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, played down the notion of substantial differences between the governments, saying that “we have a very complicated and quite substantial relationship with China across the board.” The New York Times
