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From overseas press

Soothing China-US tensions

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-04-01 13:31

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China on Monday praised the "positive attitude" of President Barack Obama after he urged a better relationship when he received credentials from Zhang Yesui, the new Chinese ambassador to the US. Some international media deemed that Beijing and Washington have extended olive branches to each other after months of bickering. The following are the comments from several overseas media:

South China Morning Post, March 31

Pang Zhongying, an international relations professor at Renmin University, said Obama used the opportunity of receiving Zhang to signal a new phase in Sino-US ties.

But he also said the remarks failed to address the more pressing issues that were still bothering Sino-US relations - Iran and the value of the Chinese currency.

"These are rather general remarks that serve as gestures of goodwill."

International Herald Tribune, March 31

A worrisome confrontation is escalating between the United States and China.

Despite the rising rhetoric, the current discord is not about a fundamental clash of national interest. Rather, it is the product of domestic pressures on both sides that are cornering their governments into a counterproductive game of tit for tat. There is a win-win way out, but American and Chinese politicians both need to see through the haze of mutual recrimination to recognize it.

Washington and Beijing should engage in mutual accommodation, each taking actions that will give the other more domestic room for maneuver.

AFP, March 31

Weeks after warning that ties were in disarray, China is signaling a readiness to work with the United States but fresh disputes could set back relations just as quickly, analysts say.

"This was a nice symbolic moment on which the two countries could agree to change the tenor," said Nina Hachigian, a China expert at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think-tank.

"It was optically very easy to show that relations are improving," she said. "But there are plenty of things coming up that could derail the relationship."

Chief among them is currency. Other potential disputes include human rights, climate change and Internet freedom after Google reported cyberattacks by China.