[classicman]

Obama won no concessions from China on points at issue

BEIJING — President Barack Obama on Wednesday wraps up a three-day visit to China that's left him keenly aware of the limits of his administration's leverage over this economic powerhouse on issues from currency exchange rates to human rights.

Obama has little leverage over China , in part because the U.S. depends on the Chinese to finance the U.S. government's growing debt, and because of the perception in China , which for years was an economic nonentity, that the U.S. is troubled and China is ascendant.

Administration officials said that the China stop, part of a four-nation Asia tour that will conclude Thursday in South Korea , was a success because it laid the groundwork for a more focused U.S.- China alliance to tackle everything from global warming to nuclear weapons containment.

China gave no evident ground on the points at issue, however.
n two areas in which the United States wants to shift China's positions — valuation of the Chinese currency and the Chinese government's censorship practices and human rights abuses — no advances were announced, however.

The U.S. is the world's largest economy; China's the world's most populous nation, with the third largest gross domestic product. China has helped keep the American economy afloat through the recession. Its huge trade surplus with the United States — and the $800 billion worth of American government debt that it holds — is economically unsustainable and leaves the U.S. dependent on Beijing's financial favor, however.

Obama has called for China to stop undervaluing its currency and adopt a more market-based standard as one way to begin reducing the trade imbalance.

Other aspects of Obama's visit also were sobering. Even as he arrived Sunday night, human rights organizations reported that the Chinese government was rounding up and arresting dissidents to ensure that they couldn't reach out to the U.S.

The following day, Hu allowed Obama's town-hall meeting, the first such event for a Western leader in China , to air on local television in Shanghai — but not nationally.

Hu didn't agree to any news conferences at which reporters could ask questions.

There were no chants of "O-ba-ma!" at the town hall meeting. Instead, 400 students selected by authorities at their universities awaited his arrival in silence, sitting rigidly and displaying little emotion.

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Good luck with that plan. You've got as good a chance of that happening as asking the opposing team not to play their star players. Why would China do that when it is clearly NOT in their best interest?