NEW YORK TIMES
By MICHAEL WINES
President Hu Jintao of China called for closer cooperation with the United States in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim in a speech on Thursday, offering an olive branch in a region where China’s increasing influence and military presence have roiled relations between the two powers.
Speaking to leaders of American business and foreign-relations organizations in Washington, Mr. Hu said that the Pacific Rim was where Washington and Beijing had the greatest range of overlapping interests, and he called closer coordination of American and Chinese activities there “crucial to the regional situation and our bilateral relations.”
“We should stay committed to promoting peace, stability and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said, “and turn the Asia-Pacific into an important region where China and the United States work closely with each other on the basis of mutual respect.”
China’s territorial disputes with several nations in the region, including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, grew more fractious last year, prompting many of the region’s governments to ask the United States to step up its military and political involvement there.
The American response — an offer to mediate the disputes, and a blunt statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the need for states in the regional states to retain their independence — in turn angered the Chinese military and some leaders in Beijing, who saw the moves as intended to check China’s growing influence.
Mr. Hu’s speech was laced with calls for China and the United States to cooperate and coordinate their actions on many global issues, from the Doha round of world trade negotiations to climate change and energy-conservation initiatives. He also called for a sustained effort to improve bilateral relations with more cultural, business and student exchanges, closer military cooperation and more joint projects in agriculture, space exploration, energy and other fields.
“The development of China-United States relations in the final analysis hinges on the broad support and active involvement of people from all walks of life in both countries,” he said.
With a broader dialogue involving every facet of both societies, he said, “more and more people will become supporters of stronger China-United States relations and get actively involved in this worthy cause.”
NEW YORK TIMES
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