Xi Jinping and Obama meet ahead of G20 Summit
September 5, 2016 Category G20, Weekly
Beijing and Washington should strengthen mutual trust and “manage and control divergences in a constructive manner” for a lasting and healthy development of bilateral relations, President Xi Jinping said when meeting with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama in Hangzhou on September 3. The meeting, the eighth between the two leaders, was held ahead of the two-day G20 Leaders Summit on September 4 and 5. Two-way trade, investment and personnel exchanges are at historic highs, and both countries have worked jointly to tackle climate change, advance negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) and establish a mutual trust mechanism between the two countries’ militaries, Xi said. Progress has also been made in fighting cybercrime, coping with the ebola epidemic in Africa and facilitating an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue, the President said. Tackling climate change has been a highlight of the China-U.S. collaboration. Ahead of their face-to-face talks, the two leaders handed over to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the documents in which the two countries agreed to join the Paris climate agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
China and the United States committed anew to refrain from competitive currency devaluations, with China saying it would continue an orderly transition to a market-oriented exchange rate for the yuan. A joint “fact sheet”, issued a day after Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama held talks, also said the two countries committed “not to unnecessarily limit or prevent commercial sales opportunities for foreign suppliers of IT products or services”. Both countries said they would “refrain from competitive devaluations and not target exchange rates for competitive purposes”, the fact sheet said. China would “continue an orderly transition to a market-determined exchange rate, enhancing two-way flexibility. China stresses that there is no basis for a sustained depreciation of the yuan. Both sides recognize the importance of clear policy communication.” China said it would deepen supply-side structural reforms with a comprehensive strategy, including state-owned enterprise reform, giving full play to the role of the market and legal mechanisms, to reduce corporate debt, including state-owned enterprise debt. China and the U.S. also recognize that excess capacity in steel and other industries is a global issue which requires collective responses, the South China Morning Post reports.
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