Foreign media react positively to Hu's U.S. visit
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Major foreign media have been positive in their coverage so far of Chinese President Hu Jintao's four-day visit to the United States, which began Tuesday.
AP said Obama was lavishing the grandest of White House welcomes on Hu as the leaders of the two powers looked for common ground on economic and security issues without alienating their domestic audiences.
"I absolutely believe China's peaceful rise is good for the world, and it's good for America," Obama said.
The Washington Post said Obama stated several times that the United States does not fear a stronger China and that Washington has no interest in blocking Beijing's emergence as a superpower.
It also said Hu's visit, in addition to serious policy matters, featured a fair amount of glitz. He arrived at the White House to a 21-gun salute and was sent off with a state dinner.
The Wall Street Journal said President Obama is looking to assure Americans that they should not fear China's economic rise, using Chinese President Hu's high-profile state visit to announce job-creating business deals worth billions of dollars to U.S. companies.
The two sides played down differences and stressed areas of cooperation, ranging from a plan to cooperate on nuclear security to an extension of the loan of two Chinese pandas to Washington's zoo.
CNN said at a joint news conference held by the two leaders, Obama praised a "spirit of cooperation that is also friendly competition." President Hu told reporters the countries' relationship is based on "mutual respect and mutual benefit."
Obama stressed common interests between the nations while toasting the Chinese leader at the White House, CNN said.
VOA said dozens of business deals this week will increase U.S. exports by more than 45 billion U.S. dollars and increase China's investments in the United States by several billion dollars.
AFP said that, during Hu's visit, the United States and China had announced a raft of trade deals worth 45 billion dollars. The deals, spanning sectors as diverse as agriculture, gasification, railways and hybrid buses, would support 235,000 U.S. jobs.
"The scope of Wednesday's deals were seen as evidence of the rapidly deepening business links between the two countries," AFP said.
The Los Angeles Times said in its report that two leaders "unapologetically acknowledged major differences on economic issues and human rights" in a White House summit Wednesday, but also pledged cooperation to stabilize relations between the world's two largest economies.
Obama said the United States hoped to benefit from China's "rapid and peaceful" growth, the report said.
The Times of India said, "China's President Hu Jintao arrived in Washington on Tuesday on a four-day U.S. visit that is being watched in every capital on the planet."
O Estado de S. Paulo, a local daily newspaper in Brazil, quoted President Hu's words, saying that China and the United States "stand to gain from a sound China-U.S. relationship, and lose from confrontation," thus they needed to discard the "Cold War mentality."
The newspaper also said the two nations both hoped to take the visit as an opportunity to rebuild mutual trust despite some frictions over the past year.
