Chinese president is planning his first state visit to Washington later this year, Beijing’s ambassador to the U.S. told the state-run China Daily newspaper.
{mosads}Xi Jinping‘s visit comes on the heels of President Obama’s visit last November to Beijing, where the pair announced a breakthrough new climate agreement that will limit China’s emission of greenhouse gasses. The leaders also announced an extension on travel visas between the countries and the lifting of tariffs on technology products.
In an interview published Monday with Vox, Obama said the U.S. needed a strong bilateral relationship with China “to achieve a bunch of international goals like climate change that are of great national security importance to us and billions of other people.”
But the administration has also publicly clashed with Beijing over human rights and trade issues in recent weeks.
Last week, Obama praised the Dalai Lama at the National Prayer Breakfast, likely straining relations with China. And in the same interview with Vox, Obama said his push for a major trade deal covering the Pacific was intended partially as a check on Beijing.
“Where Americans have a legitimate reason to be concerned is that, in part, this rise has taken place on the backs of an international system in which China wasn’t carrying its own weight or following the rules of the road and we were, and in some cases we got the short end of the stick,” Obama said.
The president also called for “maritime rules that don’t allow large countries to bully small ones” amid a series of territorial disputes in the South and East China seas.
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got a constructive relationship with China, one that is hardheaded enough to make sure they’re not taking advantage of us, but also sends a message to them that we can create a win-win situation as opposed to a pure competition that could be dangerous,” Obama said. “And in order to do that, China, you’ve got to step up and help us underwrite these global rules that in fact help to facilitate your rise.”
During an appearance Friday at the Brookings Institution, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the White House had invited both Xi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for formal state visits, while the leaders of South Korea and Indonesia are also expected to visit Washington.
“With China, we’re building a constructive relationship that expands practical cooperation across a wide spectrum of issues from global health to non-proliferation, even as we confront real differences over human rights, cyber-enabled economic espionage, and the use of coercion to advance territorial claims,” Rice said.