For China and US, a Summit That's All About R-E-S-P-E-C-T

For all the laundry list of profound and resonating issues confronting the United States and China, from North Korea and human rights to currency rates and trade deals that affect hundreds of thousands of American jobs, the goal of President Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington seemed to boil down to two words: mutual respect.

And an Obama administration that needs Chinese cooperation and support for many of its own security and economic goals was ready to provide it.

At a welcoming ceremony and start-and-stop news conference hindered by glitches in the translation process, President Barack Obama accentuated the positive across a host of economic and political disputes between the two countries.

And if he couldn't eliminate the negative when addressing deeper quarrels over human rights, Taiwan and Chinese commercial prejudices against foreign competition, Obama's overriding message was that "we have an enormous stake in each other's success."

"Certainly, the more that we can build a baseline of trust -- as you called it, strategic mutual trust -- the more likely we are able to solve the friction or irritants that exist in a relationship between any two countries in a more constructive way," Obama told a Chinese reporter who asked if that was the biggest bilateral point of friction. "Which is why I think it's so important that not only governments but people in both countries understand the challenges that each country faces, and not view every issue through the lens of rivalry."

And yet, most of the U.S. agenda for the summit was about fighting to give American companies a more level playing field against their Chinese rivals.

Obama opened the news conference touting the $45 billion in new export deals announced between China and American companies that included Boeing, General Electric and Honeywell. But there was no concrete, detailed Chinese promise to change practices that discriminate against U.S. and other foreign entities.

Obama spoke optimistically about renewed Chinese commitments to enforce intellectual property rights protections; drop trade barriers; expand market access for U.S. manufactured goods, services and agricultural products; and loosen currency controls. But the president offered no hint of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's complaints last week that China has rarely followed through on such commitments.

And though Hu was equally determined to promote the importance of cooperation, that determination included virtually no details of where or how more cooperation would take place.

"We should adopt a long-term perspective, seek common ground while reserving differences, and work together to achieve sustained, sound and steady development of our relations," Hu said when he arrived at the White House, and he stuck to such generalities the rest of the day.

One of the most bitter and enduring areas of Sino-American argument -- the billions of dollars China spends every year keeping the yuan artificially low against the dollar in ways that make American goods less competitive -- was an example of where emphasis on amity trumped years of adversity.

Obama offered praise for Hu and China's "increasing the flexibility of its currency" and said he would "continue to look for the value of China's currency to be increasingly driven by the market, which will help ensure that no nation has an undue economic advantage."

But the joint U.S.-Chinese statement issued late in the day by the White House offered little more detail than Hu did, saying only that China will continue to reform its exchange rate flexibility and that "both sides agree to continue to pursue forward-looking monetary policies with due regards to the ramifications of those policies for the international economy."

The leaders said little new about North Korea and Iran, aside from pledging to continue to work together against nuclear proliferation.

And even the most contentious issue between the two nations -- China's globally condemned record on human rights, a subject of fierce Obama administration criticism in the past -- produced a tame dialogue.

The most suspenseful issue for summit watchers was whether Obama, the 2009 Nobel peace laureate, would publicly bring up last year's Nobel winner, the imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiabao.

He did not.

"China has a different political system than we do. China's at a different stage of development than we are. We come from very different cultures, and with very different histories," Obama said when challenged by a reporter to defend the U.S. partnership with China. "But as I've said before, and I repeated to President Hu, we have some core views, as Americans, about the universality of certain rights -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly -- that we think are very important and that transcend cultures."

Obama added that he was "very candid with President Hu about these issues," but said that like previous American presidents he believes that "we can engage and discuss these issues in a frank and candid way, focus on those areas where we agree, while acknowledging there are going to be areas where we disagree."

Hu, stone-faced as Obama spoke, ducked a question on human rights and afterward blamed "the technical translation and interpretation problem."

When pressed again on the issue, Hu acknowledged that he and Obama discussed it.

"Though there are disagreements between China and the United States on the issue of human rights," Hu said, "China is willing to engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of noninterference in each other's internal affairs."

That seemed to be what China sought on every subject of summiteering discussion: the "equal footing" and "mutual respect" Hu repeatedly mentioned, and a phrase repeated six times in the joint statement.

And Obama seemed to be betting that an investment of respect now will pay dividends in Chinese cooperation later.