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BEIJING: US President Barack Obama wrapped up his first trip to China on Wednesday by meeting Premier Wen Jiabao, who said the two nations were better off as partners not rivals, and visiting the Great Wall.
The US president left Beijing for South Korea, where he was due to meet President Lee Myung-Bak on Thursday for talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and a stalled bilateral free trade pact.
Obama and Wen hailed their countries' willingness to build a new, in-depth partnership as they sat down for discussions and a working lunch in Beijing, echoing comments made Tuesday by the US leader and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
"Dialogue is better than confrontation and partnership is better than rivalry," Wen said in his opening remarks.
Obama noted the Sino-US relationship was "now expanding to deal with a whole host of global issues in which US-China cooperation is critical".
They also broached the thorny issue of trade, following tensions over accusations of dumping and other unfair trade practices made by both sides, as well as the value of the Chinese yuan.
"We do not pursue a trade surplus," Wen said, according to a foreign ministry transcript of his comments.
The state Xinhua news agency quoted Obama as saying he "appreciates China's efforts" to expand domestic demand and "reform the renminbi exchange rate regime" - references to US calls for economic rebalancing and a stronger yuan.
Beijing is under mounting pressure to let its currency appreciate, with the United States and Europe complaining the yuan is being kept artificially low to boost Chinese exports by making them more competitive overseas.
Wen called on the United States to "lift its policy of restricting exports of high-tech products to China" and Obama responded that his country was willing to address the issue, according to the foreign ministry.
The US president - who was accompanied by his secretaries of state, commerce and energy and the country's trade representative - and Wen also denounced protectionism, the Chinese side said.
Xinhua said Wen and Obama also touched on climate change and North Korea, where the Chinese premier was told by leader Kim Jong-Il last month that Pyongyang was willing to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
Obama held the bulk of his formal talks on Tuesday with Hu, after which the leaders of the world's number one and three economies said they had agreed to pool their global clout to attack a number of tough issues.
The pair vowed to push for a climate change deal, called on North Korea to return to the six-party talks and emphasised the need to resurrect the global economy from the depths of crisis.
But few concrete agreements emerged from the talks and differences were obvious in the two leaders' statements on Iran, economic issues and Tibet.
Yet Obama on Tuesday said Sino-US ties have "never been more important to our collective future", adding that the world was facing immense challenges that "neither of our nations can solve by acting alone".
Both he and Hu spoke about building a "positive, cooperative, and comprehensive" relationship -- using the exact same phrase. Obama has invited Hu to visit the United States in 2010, and Hu has accepted.
Aides to the US president - whose visit to China was the third and longest leg of his Asia tour, following stops in Japan and Singapore - have stressed that he is working on a relationship that will be invaluable for the future.
US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman said Obama was "extremely effective" in his private meetings with Hu and other top officials.
And Jeffrey Bader, Obama's top White House East Asia aide, said the trip had been "highly successful in setting out and accomplishing the objectives that we had set for ourselves" and an "important first step in building a partnership".
But Obama's signature charisma and oratory flair were stifled during the visit, with his message - especially his call for Internet freedoms - kept from reaching the masses by China's tight controls on the media and the web.
One of the US president's last views of China came from atop the Great Wall - a treasured Chinese landmark like the Forbidden City in Beijing, which Obama visited on Tuesday.
He called the wall "spectacular" and said it stood as a "reminder of the ancient history of the Chinese people".
"It gives you a good perspective of a lot of the day-to-day things. They don't amount to much in the scope of history," Obama said.
- AFP/yb
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