Obama on China: A most important relationship

Obama on China: A most important relationship




4 Recommend In keynoting a U.S.-Chinese economic meeting, President Obama decided to quote the world's most famous Chinese man: basketball star Yao Ming.

The 7-foot-6 center once said that "no matter whether you are new or an old team member, you need time to adjust to one another," Obama proclaimed at the inaugural meeting of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. "I am confident that we will meet Yao's standard."

Obama also said he will soon visit China, but did not provide a date.

They need to because "the relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century," Obama said. That makes it "as important as any bilateral relationship in the world."

His goals for an American partnership: Working together to end the current economic crisis, including tighter regulation of the financial sector; addressing global warming; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, especially on the Korean Peninsula; and confronting transnational threats, including "extremists who murder innocents."

He called for "intelligence sharing," to head off threats ranging from a terrorist attack to a disease epidemic.

"I have no illusion that the United States and China will agree on every issue, nor choose to see the world in the same way," Obama said. "But that only makes dialogue more important, so that we can know each other better, and communicate our concerns with candor."

Obama said people in both nations are "wary" of the future. "Some in China think that America will try to contain China's ambitions; some in America think that there is something to fear in a rising China." But he takes a different view, and sees two superpowers as "partners out of necessity, but also out of opportunity."

China has also played a unique role in U.S. politics this year. Obama's nominee for ambassador to Beijing is Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a John McCain supporter who had been thinking of running for president himself in 2012. Obama said Huntsman's acceptance of the job shows "broad, bipartisan support for positive and productive relations between the United States and China."