[Despite the rapid-fire diplomatic challenges, Mr. Obama did make time to speak with Mr. Wen on Saturday morning after the Chinese leader asked if they could meet. And Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, described the meeting as “a good engagement.” A report in Xinhua, the official Chinese government news service, backed up the administration’s suggestion that Mr. Wen had been put in an uncomfortable position by the focus on the South China Sea, especially because the country has long insisted that the issue should not be discussed in multinational forums.]
By Jackie Calmes
 |
Pool photo by Romeo Gacad
President Obama met with Premier Wen Jiabao of
China, right, on Saturday in Indonesia on the sidelines
of an Asian forum. |
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Obama and nearly all the leaders at an Asian summit directly confronted China on Saturday for its expansive claims to the resource-rich South China Sea, putting the Chinese premier on the defensive in the long-festering dispute, according to Obama administration officials.
Premier Wen Jiabao was by turns “grouchy” and constructive as he responded to the concerns aired by almost all of the leaders attending the East Asia Summit, said one of the administration officials, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One as Mr. Obama returned from an eight-day diplomatic swing around the Pacific Rim.
The meeting, at the end of the summit, capped a week during which Mr. Obama moved quickly, and on several fronts, to restore the influence of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region after years of preoccupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. He announced that 2,500 Marines would be stationed in Australia; opened the door to restored ties with Myanmar, a Chinese ally; and gained support for a regional free-trade bloc that so far omits Beijing.
The announcements appeared to startle Chinese leaders, who issued a series of warnings that claimed the United States was seeking to destabilize the region.
Despite the rapid-fire diplomatic challenges, Mr. Obama did make time to speak with Mr. Wen on Saturday morning after the Chinese leader asked if they could meet. And Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, described the meeting as “a good engagement.” A report in Xinhua, the official Chinese government news service, backed up the administration’s suggestion that Mr. Wen had been put in an uncomfortable position by the focus on the South China Sea, especially because the country has long insisted that the issue should not be discussed in multinational forums.
At an Asian regional meeting last year in Hanoi, at which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly warned China to curb its aggressiveness in its territorial claims, the Chinese foreign minister walked out enraged, according to officials who were there.
On Saturday, Mr. Wen acknowledged that he did not want to discuss the issue at the summit, but added that it would be “impolite” not to answer the concerns of his country’s neighbors, according to Xinhua. He then defended China’s stance on the sea, according to the news service and an Obama administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.
The fact that Mr. Wen spoke at all, however, represented a tactical defeat in a struggle that has become a focal point in the larger tug-of-war with the United States over influence in the region.
The United States, with an eye toward strengthening ties with China’s smaller neighbors, has backed their preference for multinational talks, rather than one-on-one negotiations in which China would have the advantage.
The administration official’s account of the nearly two-hour session suggested a more dramatic exchange than is typical of such gatherings. Of the 18 nations represented at the East Asia Summit, only the leaders of Cambodia and Myanmar did not raise the issue of maritime security as the presidents and prime ministers took turns speaking, the administration official said.
Unlike an initial session of the summit, where the leaders met in a large ballroom with retinues of aides on issues of trade, education and multilateral responses to natural disasters, the session Saturday included only the 18 leaders and one adviser each in a smaller room — suggesting a relative intimacy that likely facilitated more candor.
The official said that Mr. Obama, who was the first American president to attend the East Asia Summit, “did not lobby” the other leaders to speak up.
The first to speak up, the administration official said, were the leaders of Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam — among whom tensions with China run highest — followed by representatives of Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, India, Russia and Indonesia, the summit host.
The leaders reiterated their insistence on a “multilateral resolution of the conflicting territorial claims,” the official said.
Only after other leaders had spoken did Mr. Obama express his agreement with them, the official said.
Mr. Obama argued that, “while we are not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute, and while we do not take sides, we have a powerful stake in maritime security in general, and in the resolution of the South China Sea issue specifically — as a resident Pacific power, as a maritime nation, as a trading nation and as a guarantor of security in the Asia Pacific region.”
Then Mr. Wen replied.
The administration official described his response as “positive in the sense that he was not on a tirade, and he did not use many of the more assertive formulas that we frequently hear from the Chinese, particularly in public.”
Instead, the official said, Mr. Wen simply countered that the East Asia Summit was not the place to discuss the issue, and asserted “that China goes to great pains to ensure that the shipping lanes are safe and free.”
“I would describe the overall discussion as constructive,” and not acrimonious, the official added. “The leaders were not equivocating; they were not speaking ambiguously.”
What was interesting, the official said, was not what Mr. Wen said, but what he did not. For instance, he did not repeat the notion that the disputes should be resolved bilaterally. But a report in Xinhua said the prime minister “reaffirmed” China’s position, perhaps indicating that his omission did not mean any real change in thinking.
Despite the prickly response by Chinese leaders throughout the week, the backlash has been relatively muted, at least compared to the past when such moves would have generated more critical statements and sometimes blistering commentaries in the state-run media.
Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow in China studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, attributed the Chinese response to possible confusion over Mr. Obama’s intentions as he approaches a difficult presidential election.
“They’re probably not too sure how much of it to attribute to the political campaign, and how much to attribute to a shift in U.S. strategy,” Ms. Glaser said.
