HONG KONG — All indications are that the first summit meeting between the new American president, Barack Obama, and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, went extremely well. The American leader has already accepted an invitation to visit Beijing later this year.
Beijing made sure the summit would go well by not pushing the confrontation between the two countries in the South China Sea last month.
The incident was mentioned by Obama in the meeting with Hu but both sides decided not to dwell on it. Instead, they have agreed on a new, high-level dialogue mechanism, called the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (SAED). Under this arrangement, there will be Cabinet-level dialogues involving both political and economic issues every year.
In addition, military-to-military exchanges as well as a human rights dialogue are also being resumed. Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S Chief of Naval Operations, will visit China later this month to attend events marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese navy.
As is customary, the two countries also agreed on a description of their relationship. They agreed to work together to build a "positive, cooperative and comprehensive" relationship for the 21st century.
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