Washington: Ahead of the meeting between US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Hawaii later this week, White House today said that China is not taking enough steps to address America’s concerns with regard to its currency.
“We saw China indicate some steps that they were prepared to take, along with emerging economies, to bolster domestic demand going forward. They have taken steps on currency, but we don’t believe that those are sufficient,” Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, told reporters during an off camera briefing at the White House.
“So I’m sure that the President will be raising with President Hu the broader need for global growth that is supported by demand in China and other emerging economies. Currency is a part of that picture,” Rhodes said in response to a question.
Obama would meet Hu Jintao on Saturday in Hawaii, Rhodes, said.
He said it’s an important opportunity to discuss Washinton’s economic agenda, including its efforts to sustain global growth through a rebalancing of global demand, “range of regional security issues, including the agendas for the East Asia Summit that the President will be attending, as well as nonproliferation issues and issues associated with Iran and North Korea as well”.
Noting that the Asia Pacific region is experiencing a lot of rapidly developing change, including the rise of China, Rhodes said the US wants to make it clear that it is going to continue to be a strong Asia-Pacific power.
The White House official said the US will continue to stand by its core alliances, to build positive relationships with emerging powers like China and India.
He said the US also wants to foster an environment “where all of this change is channeled to effective regional solutions,” as it essentially wants to the success of a rules-based system in this part of the world.
“We want to see countries follow the rules of the road on economic issues, again, whether that’s adhering to intellectual property — intellectual property norms, whether it’s adhering to regulatory norms,” Rhodes said.
“So, on the economic side, we very much want to have rules of the road in place that all nations are committed to. And then similarly on the security side, we want to have institutions set up, like the East Asia Summit, to address multinational issues like maritime security or nuclear security, so that we have a rules-based framework to deal with that as well,” he said.
He said the US wants to “both reassure our allies, develop strong ties with emerging nations and then try to build a regional framework to deal with issues,” (PTI)