World leaders should avoid playing the blame game in discussions about how currencies such as China’s undervalued yuan are affecting trade and the global economy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told his Chinese counterpart during talks on the French Riviera.
Sarkozy, welcoming Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) for a state visit, has taken a non-confrontational tone about sensitive subjects such as the yuan as France prepares to lead the G20 global economies. The US says Beijing’s undervalued currency gives it an unfair trade boost.
Hu is receiving a red-carpet welcome in France, a change from the tense relations of two years ago, when Sarkozy threatened to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics out of anger about China’s treatment of Tibet.
Fearful of losing big business in China’s massive market, Sarkozy has softened his tone.
The talks came a day after the two men oversaw the signing of billions of euros worth of business deals, but avoided public discussion of human rights — to the dismay of activists and supporters of jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Sarkozy said the two leaders did discuss human rights in private at a villa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Nice.
France “has values to defend, and we are defending them — but, meanwhile, we respect our partners and understand that they have a different culture, that they have had further to come and that we have to encourage them to embrace openness,” Sarkozy told reporters.
Earlier on Friday in Paris, as Hu’s motorcade headed to the Arc de Triomphe, activists opened white umbrellas with stickers bearing the words “Free Liu Xiaobo.” Some activists were detained by plainclothes officers.
In Nice, where the focus was on the economy, Sarkozy also said leaders should not “hurl abuse at each other” as they discussed problems with the monetary system.
Such issues are to be discussed at a summit of world leaders in South Korea in a week.
The French president said the current system hadn’t changed since the mid-1940s and that coming up with a 21st-century model would be tough.
France’s ambition for its G20 leadership starting Nov. 12 “is for everyone to accept to sit down at the table to set up the basis for a new system that will guarantee the world’s stability,” Sarkozy said.
His office said an international monetary seminar was expected to take place in China this spring. Otherwise, Sarkozy has given few hints of his reform ideas.
Hu, who did not speak to reporters, was to depart yesterday for Portugal.
One analyst said China was likely seeking allies in France and the EU because its relations with the US are suffering. Valerie Niquet, director of Asian affairs at the Foundation for Strategic Research, believes China will support Sarkozy’s G20 reform proposals — but only in word, not in practice.
“We can’t expect a true revamping of the world financial system that would lead, for example, to very firm and concrete pressure on China,” she said.
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