Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington - live coverage
Chinese president Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington and meeting with Barack Obama - follow the action live
2.34pm ET: "Thank you all for your patience," says Obama, bringing a longer than expected and sometimes frustrating press conference to an end.
Hu's answer to the human rights question (read it here) seems newsworthy on the face of things but I'm not enough of a Sinophile to pronounce on such topics.
Let's see what the reaction is.
2.32pm ET: Interestingly, CNN reports that broadcasts of the Hu and Obama press conference are not being shown in China.
2.30pm ET: The Xinhua agency question turns out to be along the lines of "Just how fabulous are relations between China and the US?"
Pretty fabulous, says Obama, but could be even more fabulous, especially if every issue isn't viewed through the lens of rivalry.
"We welcome China's rise," says Obama. "We just want to make sure that rise occurs in a way that reinforces international norms and enhances international security and peace as opposed to being a source of conflict, either in the region or around the world."
2.25pm ET: "The currency issue is a part of the problem, the renminbi is undervalued," says Obama, more bluntly. "President Hu has indicated that he is in favour of moving towards a market-based system," he goes on, but it's not happening fast enough.
Anyway, it will be a win-win for both countries once the renminbi floats, says Obama.
More translation fun follows as the Xinhua news agency reporter demands that the translator translate his question accurately.
2.20pm ET: Obama is asked about the artificially low level of the yuan (or the renminbi, as everyone is calling it at the White House today) hurting US exports. The US president hedges by talking about what America needs to do in "making sure we have a handle on our fiscal problems" a! nd simil ar domestic issues.
2.15pm ET: Hu was obviously well prepared for the question and goes on at some length.
Then: "As for the latter question as to the attendence at the state dinner," Hu continues, "I think President Obama is in a better position to answer that question," making a joke rewarded with a ripple of laughs around the room.
2.06pm ET: A Bloomberg journalist asks Hu directly why he didn't answer the first AP question about human rights and follows up with a query about the reaction from congressional leaders and their non-attendence at the state dinner last night, as mentioned below.
Hu says he didn't hear the question about human rights for technical reasons, saying it was a question directed at President Obama, but says he will answer it now:
"President Obama and I have already met eight times. each time we met we had an exchange of views in a candid manner ... in the issues we covered we also covered human rights. China is always committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. In terms of human rights China has made enormous progress."
"Chinese is a huge country with a huge population," Hu reminds us, and it "still faces challenges in terms of reform".
"China still has a lot to do" to improve its human rights situation, Hu is translated as saying, which seems interesting and perhaps unusual.
2.05pm ET: "We want to sell you all kinds of stuff. We want to sell you planes, we want to sell you cars, we want to sell you software," says Obama in response to a question about the growth of China.
2pm ET: Hu replies to a Chinese TV journalist saying "I will take the question of the lady journalist," according to the translator:
"The statistics I have show each year we have about three million people travelling between our two countries ... this is something that is hardly conceivable 30 years ago."
I'm afraid I've lost track of what the actual question was. Something about links between the two countries.
Young peopl! e are th e future, says Hu. (Maybe Hu should run for the Republican nomination with that depth of analysis.)
1.55pm ET: It's hard to figure out who's asking who questions. Or indeed who's asking Hu questions, in this case.
Finally, China's president speaks. In between Obama appeared to be playing a quick game of "here's a church, here's a steeple".
1.52pm ET: After a very long translation, Hu seems to be answering the question from the AP reporter. Some confusion, it appears. Obama says he thought there was simultaneous translation, otherwise he wouldn't have gone on for so long.
1.50pm ET: Hu is now asked the same question by a translator I hope he responds to the possibility of Huntsman running against him for president.
1.47pm ET: China is committed to a "win-win strategy in terms of opening up," says Hu. Now it's questions from journalists.
The AP journalist in the front row asks about human rights, and how the US can ally with a country that "treats its people so badly". Then he adds a silly inside baseball question about the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, possibly running for the Republican presidential nomination. "I'm sure the fact that he's worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary," jokes Obama, to some laughs.
On the more serious matter of human rights, Obama says he told Hu that the US thinks some rights are very important and transcend cultures. "I have been very candid with President Hu," says Obama but then reminding everyone that seven previous US presidents have managed to get along with China despite those differences.
1.40pm ET: Now its Hu Jintao's turn. "We had an in-depth exchange of views," Hu reveals, to no one's surprise.
"China-US co-operation has great significance," says Hu, remarking that both countries should "respect" each other's society (human rights) and "territorial integrity" (meaning the "one China" policy).
"We discussed some disagreements in the economic and trade area and we will! continu e to resolve these," Hu says, slightly more candidly.
1.35pm ET: Obama says he stressed that China needs to create a "level playing field" for American companies operating in the country and welcomed "new steps" in protecting intellectual property rights.
Then it was on to the respective economies and their reform.
"We agreed that in China that means boosting domestic demand, and in the US it means spending less," said Obama. But he wants China's currency to be "increasingly driven by the market" meaning he wants to see the yuan to appreciate against the dollar.
Obama says he reaffirmed the US's commitment to a "one China policy". No surprise there. There was a call to the international community to bear down on North Korea, and indeed Iran, on nuclear weapons.
There's some talk about progress on human rights, and that the the US continues to support "dialogue" between China and the Dalai Lama.
1.30pm ET: "We just had a very good meeting with business leaders from both our countries," kicks off Obama, noting that US exports to China support nearly half a million jobs of American workers.
Obama takes credit on behalf of America for Asia's stability and subsequent growth. Mmm. Obama lists cases in which China and the US have worked together. "What is needed is a spirit of co-operation and friendly competition," says Obama. "That's the kind of relationship I see for China and the US in the 21st century."
1.27pm ET: Here we go - Hu and Obama have arrived on stage.
1.24pm ET: According to CNN, China is governed by one party and doesn't have elections. Fancy. But it's number one in cell phone use.
1.23pm ET: No sign of the two presidents yet, for what was billed as a 1pm press conference. CNN reduced to filling air time by showing maps of China and saying how big it is.
1.15pm ET: While Hu Jintao is being feted at the White House, the Chinese president faces an unfriendlier welcome tomorrow from senior US politicians who skipped his state dinne! r and ca lled him a dictator.
The visiting Chinese leader was notably to sit down separately with Republican House Speaker John Boehner the third-ranking US elected official and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Both lawmakers declined US President Barack Obama's invitation to attend a state dinner in Hu's honor at the White House on Wednesday, without saying more than that they planned to holds talks with him one day later.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, just back from a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, also declined to attend the glitzy affair and planned to be in his home state of Kentucky on Thursday, missing Hu entirely.
And Reid raised eyebrows late Tuesday when he told a television interviewer in his home state of Nevada that Hu was "a dictator" before quickly regretting the remark.
"I am going to back to Washington and meet with the president of China. He is a dictator. He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have," Reid told KSNV television.
"Maybe I shouldn't have said 'dictator,' but they have a different type of government than we have and that is an understatement," said Reid, who had been asked about the prospects for cooperation in divided Washington.
1.10pm ET: Cable TV now showing clips of Obama talking to business leaders at an earlier meeting with Hu about extending business relationships between the two countries.
"We need to break out of the old stereotypes" of China selling the US cheap goods and taking its manufacturing jobs, says Obama. The US now exports $100bn a year to China, he says, and goes on to comment:
"It is important to note that even with China's enormous population, the US still does more trade with Europe than with China. That gives an indication of the progress that can be made."
1.07pm ET: Waiting fo! r the tw o presidents to emerge at the White House for their joint press conference they will make statements and then will take two questions from journalists from each country.
12.45pm ET: Good afternoon. China's president Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington is underway and his host Barack Obama has already broached the difficult subject of human rights today a topic which is emerging as a central theme of Hu's US visit.
The Guardian's Washington bureau chief Ewen MacAskill reports earlier today:
In a brief appearance with Hu Jintao on the White House lawn, Obama said that countries prospered when they respected basic human rights.
"History shows that societies are more harmonious, nations are successful and the world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld, including the universal rights of every human being," he said.
We'll be covering the press conference between the heads of the two superpowers as well as the reaction to Hu's visit from human rights groups.
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