Xi and Obama to meet soon, premier says

President Xi Jinping will meet with US President Barack Obama soon, it has been revealed.

Premier Li Keqiang made the announcement on Feb 29 after meeting with Jacob Lew, special representative of the United States president and the US treasury secretary, in Beijing.

The meeting between the two presidents will help improve relations, Li said. An official announcement about the meeting has yet to be released by the Foreign Ministry.

Lew was in Beijing after attending the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Shanghai, where finance officials from the member nations pledged to prevent competitive devaluation of currencies and to facilitate global economic growth.

The meeting between Xi and Obama will take place after China's legislature, the National People's Congress, holds its annual session in Beijing, starting March 5, to decide on the nation's development this year and its social and economic program for the next half-decade.

The White House says the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit will be held on March 31 and April 1 in Washington. When meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in late February, Obama said he hoped Xi would attend the summit.

During his meeting with Lew, Li said good China-US relations were important for both countries, and China placed great emphasis on its economic and trade cooperation with the US, which Li described as an "accelerator" for the overall bilateral ties.

The premier said it was good to see during the G20 meeting that major economies would enhance coordination on macro policies. He also said the meeting went smoothly and had sent a stable message to the international community.

Chinese and US leaders last met at the Paris Climate Summit in December, and frequent meetings would be "most helpful" for bilateral ties, says Wang Yusheng, executive director of the Strategy Research Center at the China International Studies Research Fund, a government think tank.

"Every time a subtle situation seems to emerge in the bilateral relations, a face-to-face meeting between leaders of the two nations will help to sort things out," he says, adding that "there are still some uncomfortable areas in China-US ties".

After Li's meeting with Lew, Zhu Guangyao, the vice-minister of finance, who also attended the meeting, said China was glad to see many of its policy proposals were included in the G20 meeting's final document.

Xu Hongcai, a researcher with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, another government think tank, praised the Shanghai meeting for reaching a consensus among G20 finance officials to seek a balanced and sustainable way to boost the global economy.

zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 03/04/2016 page3)