WASHINGTON AND BEIJING — Relations between the United States and China are getting cozier as their battle against the global recession has drawn them closer together. But things aren't quite so warm when it comes to some hot-button topics, particularly climate change.
U.S. and Chinese officials ended two days of high-level talks in Washington on Tuesday still at loggerheads on the issue, a top priority for President Obama. Global warming got little attention during the Bush administration.
China is resisting a push to commit to targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to open its market to U.S. clean energy technology.
"China and the United States are different in their stages of development, national conditions and historic footprints, so I think they should shoulder different responsibilities in tackling climate change," Zhang Guobao, president of China's National Energy Administration, told reporters.
It's just one of several areas in which U.S. and Chinese interests are at odds despite all the smiles and signs of mutual respect before the cameras as the Obama administration hosted its first Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
Chinese officials, for instance, expressed deep concern about the ballooning U.S. budget deficit because of fears that the inflation that could follow would erode their huge investment in Treasury securities.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the Obama administration shared their concern. He and several top economic officials, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, assured the Chinese that they would rein in the deficit as they scaled back the stimulus and bailout programs.
"Our central banks have moved very aggressively to provide support and provide liquidity to markets. That basic strategy, I think we agree, is the necessary path to recovery," Geithner said. "But China, like the United States, understands that as we see recovery take hold, we're going to need to reverse those exceptional actions."
The two nations have time to work out tensions over the deficit, as well as human rights, nuclear proliferation by Iran and North Korea and the need to make the Chinese economy less dependent on exports to America. But the U.S. and China are approaching a deadline for progress on climate change. U.S. officials hope to have an agreement with China in time for an international climate change conference in December in Copenhagen.
