Little progress made in US-China talks

US President George Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed to cooperate more closely but failed to break new ground today toward resolving differences over trade and nuclear tensions with Iran and North Korea.

Their meeting was marred by a protest.

No breakthroughs had been expected during Hu’s first visit to the White House. Both he and Bush acknowledged at a picture-taking session that much work remained to be done, and the two sides would strive for progress in these areas.

The welcoming ceremony on the White House’s South Lawn for Hu’s first visit as Chinese leader was marred briefly by screams of a Chinese woman who condemned Hu’s human rights policies and China’s persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Hundreds of demonstrators massed outside to protest human-rights restrictions in China.

Bush, sitting in the Oval Office with Hu before they were to attend a formal luncheon, praised China for previous progress in what is perhaps the major irritant in the relationship, Beijing’s tightly controlled currency.

The United States considers the Chinese yuan undervalued, and Bush said: “We would hope there would be more appreciation.”

On Iran, China has resisted the approach favoured by the United States and Europe, pursuing sanctions if Tehran does not comply with demands that it halt uranium enrichment. No movement was apparent on that question.

Bush said only that the two sides agree on the goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons or having the capability to produce them and are able to “work on tactics” to achieve it.

“We don’t agree on everything, but we are able to discuss our disagreements in friendship and cooperation,” he told reporters.

Hu, aware of the growing US impatience with America’s record trade deficit with China, offered general promises to address the yawning gap.

His comments were unlikely to cool demands in Congress for punitive tariffs against Chinese products.

“We have taken measures and will continue to take steps to resolve the issue,” Hu said.

Bush put a good face on the meeting.

“He recognises that a trade deficit with the United States is substantial, and it is unsustainable,” Bush said.

“Obviously the Chinese government takes the currency issue seriously, and so do I.”

Bush also had been hoping to get Beijing to take on more than a mediator’s role in efforts to bring North Korea back to six-nation talks aimed at halting its nuclear weapons programs.

Asked what more his country could do to resolve that dispute, Hu asserted that China “has always been making constructive efforts to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula”.

The two presidents had not been expected to take questions from media, in deference to Chinese wishes.

An agreement to take questions from two reporters from each country came at the last minute and produced more than half an hour of back-and-forth as the leaders sat side-by-side in front of a fireplace.

Afterwards, the leaders went into meetings with a larger group of aides and officials. Then, Bush was hosting the formal lunch for China’s first family, with music supplied by a bluegrass band.

The half-day summit got underway with pomp and pageantry on the South Lawn as demonstrators massed outside to protest Beijing’s human-rights policies.

The two stood side by side, under bright sunshine on the South Lawn of the White House, as a military band played the national anthems of both countries.

Bush and Hu then engaged in a ceremonial review of US troops, some dressed in 18th-century Continental Army uniforms.

A woman on the camera stand interrupted the welcoming ceremony, shouting in heavily accented English and Chinese: “President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong!” and “President Bush, stop him from killing!”

Uniformed Secret Service personnel hustled her off the stand and out of the fenced-off South Lawn.

Hu arrived last night in the American capital for the first time as China’s leader after spending two days wooing American business leaders in Washington state.

In formal remarks on the South Lawn, Bush spoke more forcefully on the currency issue, saying he would continue to press for China to move “toward a flexible market exchange”.

Bush raised other issues with Hu, including complaints about China’s rights record and questions over China’s growing military strength and whether it poses a threat to Taiwan.

During his address, Hu pledged China’s help in working diplomatically to ease the nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran.

He vowed in general terms to work to promote human rights. “We should respect each other as equals and promote closer exchanges and cooperation,” he said, speaking through a translator.

Hu said that closer US-Chinese cooperation would “bring more benefits to our two people and to the people of the world”.

The visit attracted high-profile attention both inside and outside the White House gates. Falun Gong, condemned by the Chinese government as an evil cult, gathered hundreds of demonstrators on street corners near the White House in the early morning.

Marchers banged gongs, chanted and waved American and Chinese flags. Banners denounced Hu as a “Chinese dictator” responsible for genocide and other “crimes in Chinese labour camps and prisons”.

The Chinese government had its say as well. In a median in front of the Chinese Embassy, the Falun Gong protesters that are nearly always there had been replaced by Chinese supporters holding huge red-and-yellow banners offering to “warmly welcome” Hu on his American visit.

There were some obvious signs that the summit was not considered on the US side as a “state visit”.

Although the Chinese flag flew over Blair House, the official guest quarters for visiting dignitaries across the street from the White House, lamp posts surrounding the compound were bare of the usual pairings of flags from the United States and its guest country.

The two sides disputed what to call the visit, with the Chinese insisting that it is a “state visit”, the designation former President Jiang Zemin received in 1997, and the Bush administration considering it an “official visit”.

Hu has carried on a tradition started by Deng Xiaoping on his first visit to the United States in 1979, courting American business executives in recognition of the fact that the United States is China’s biggest overseas market.

Hu had dinner at the home of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday and yesterday he received a warm welcome from employees at Boeing’s massive Everett, Washington, facilities.