US President Barack Obama called for surplus economies such as China to end reliance on exports for growth, but his Chinese counterpart cautioned that economic policy change would come gradually.
Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) spoke to Asia-Pacific business executives a day after a summit in Seoul of the G20 major economies managed only vague commitments to keep a fragile global economic recovery on track.
They then joined other leaders of the APEC group for a weekend of talks on policies to ensure balanced growth and the establishment of a vast free-trade area in the world’s fastest--growing economic region.
“One of the important lessons the economic crisis taught us is the limits of depending primarily on American consumers and Asian exports to drive economic growth,” Obama said.
“Going forward, no nation should assume that their path to prosperity is simply paved with exports to America,” he said on the final leg of a 10-day tour that has also taken him to India, Indonesia and South Korea.
The US and China have been fussing over who is doing more damage to international trade. Washington contends the yuan is undervalued, giving it an export advantage, while Beijing argues the US Federal Reserve’s easy-money policy is aimed at weakening the dollar to boost exports.
Hu, taking the podium shortly after Obama, told the business forum China wanted to expand domestic demand growth and remained committed to reforming its exchange rate “on the basis of retaining initiative, controllability and gradualness.”
“China will continue making encouraging a balanced international balance of payments an important task in ensuring macro-economic stability,” Hu said.
Hanging over the summit as well are disputes between host Japan and both China and Russia over neighboring islands.
Hu barely smiled when he shook hands with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as he welcomed APEC leaders to a lunch ahead of the start of their summit.
Later, the Japanese government announced that Hu and Kan had met for 22 minutes, the first formal chat between the two leaders since the territorial row erupted in September.
Relations between Asia’s two biggest economies have been soured by the dispute over isles in the East China Sea near potentially vast oil and gas reserves. Public anger has been fueled by the recent leaking of a video that shows a Chinese fishing boat appearing to steer into Japanese patrol vessels.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Kan met on the sidelines of the APEC summit, both saying they hoped their talks would mean stronger relations.
Tokyo’s relations with Moscow chilled after Medvedev earlier this month visited an island claimed by both countries.
APEC is for the first time championing a collective growth strategy, emphasizing balanced and sustainable growth, an elusive goal when the global economy is split between cash-rich exporters and debt-burdened importers.
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