Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping have a lot to discuss. Beginning Thursday during a casual dinner and carrying through Friday’s series of formal meetings at the White House, the two leaders will cover contentious topics before Obama fetes the Chinese leader during a state dinner Friday night.
But however heated talks may get, the Obama administration says it’s committed to working things out with Beijing.
“[T]his is the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world given the breadth of issues on which the United States and China have common interests or, at times, have differences,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters this week. “But we believe strongly that engagement, including at the highest levels, is necessary to work through both those issues where we agree and can pursue constructive cooperation, and on those issues where we differ.”
Here are the most contentious issues on the table:
Cyber
The White House has refrained from publicly blaming China for sponsoring the hacks on the Office of Personnel Management and major U.S. businesses, but getting Xi to commit to ending state-sponsored cyberespionage, both traditional and commercial, may be Obama’s top priority before the two men head to New York for the annual convening of the United Nations General Assembly this weekend.
Chinese-backed hackers, such as “Red Panda,” have stolen terabytes worth of confidential information, proprietary technology and trade secrets from U.S. companies, which are lobbying the administration overtime to crack down on China once and for all.
“The concerns that we have raised most loudly are those concerns centered around government-enabled cybertheft for financial gain,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday, adding that the administration is concerned about everything cyber-related that China. “This is something China has been engaged in for quite some time and it has drawn significant rebukes from the administration.”
Defense
Whether it’s provoking its neighbors by staking claims to atolls in the South and East China seas or buzzing U.S. military jets, China’s military aggression is a major U.S. concern.
China has been laying claim to disputed islands and atolls, even reefs, sandbanks and essentially rocks, to gain strategic maritime footholds that either give it natural resources claims or military advantage. Despite the objections of neighboring countries ranging from Australia to the Philippines to Japan, China has either built or is building four military-styled runways on these “islands.”
Bejing has claimed “indisputable sovereignty” over roughly 80 percent of the South China Sea.
Earnest on Thursday listed these maritime disputes as “probably the most prominent” of the “strategic” issues Obama and Xi must discuss.
Meanwhile China continues staging large military parades and buzzing U.S. spy planes in the region, most recently this month. Last summer, one pilot even pulled what a Pentagon spokesman described as a “Top Gun” maneuver, a barrel roll, over a U.S. jet.
Economy
The U.S. conducts more than $500 billion of economic activity with China annually. U.S. businesses are champing at the bit to access Chinese markets and consumers. Yet, Washington and Corporate America complain that China isn’t serious about market reforms, devalues its currency, practices protectionism, encourages technological pirating and simply doesn’t provide a level playing field for foreign businesses.
“We have seen, this summer, that it’s important that China demonstrate that its economic reforms are on track; that it will refrain from competitive devaluation; and that it will implement pro-growth fiscal policies that accelerate the transition to consumer-led growth,” Caroline Atkinson, deputy national security adviser for international economics, said on a conference call previewing Xi’s trip this week.
“There are some irritants on the bilateral economic relationship that can be threatened by China’s policies that can be discriminatory and protectionist on technology — uneven enforcement of anti-monopoly law and actions in the agricultural sphere where science-based approach is not yet fully in place.”
The Environment
Even though China is the largest greenhouse gas emitter, Obama has been working to make the environment a sphere where Washington and Beijing can cooperate to encourage the world’s other largest polluters to make binding commitments on reducing emissions and battling climate change.
“As the two biggest emitters, our ability to work together is what unlocks the possibility of reaching that type of agreement,” Rhodes said.
At a joint press conference Friday afternoon, Obama and Xi will follow up on their historic deal on the issue reached when Obama visited China last year by issuing a “common vision” that is supposed to pave the way for a broad, international agreement at the climate conference convening in Paris in December.
Human Rights
From suppressing Tibet to jailing journalists and dissidents to policing the Internet, China’s human rights record is deplorable.
The latest infraction Obama likely will broach is China’s proposed law regarding foreign non-governmental organizations, international charities and nonprofits that help with everything from cleaning up China’s polluted waterways to educating its children to helping its rural poor.
National Security Adviser Susan Rice met this week with leaders of such civil society groups to discuss their concerns about the law, which contains strict registration and reporting requirements and would have Beijing’s public security bureau as their overseer.
“And as we always say, President Obama raises concerns about the Chinese government’s respect for basic human rights,” Earnest said. “That is a central value of this country, and therefore, a national security priority of the United States and of this president.
“And I think that he would use the occasion of this series of meetings to underscore once again what a priority that is for the United States,” Earnest said.
