In Beijing, Obama cautiously confronts a rising China and its leader

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday a successful China was in the interests of the United States and the world but Beijing had to be a partner in underwriting international order, not undermining it. Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinpiing will meet over dinner on Tuesday night and then for bilateral talks as part of an official state visit on Wednesday. Mr. Xi will be looking to advance a vision that sees the United States as an important but receding power in an Asia where the relationship that matters will increasingly be the one between China and its neighbors. Obama is out to demonstrate that his administration’s “rebalance” of US interests in Asia is on track — including the extension of American values such as political and economic freedoms across the region. The US has tried to do this without feeding China’s suspicions that the “Asia pivot” is really about containing China.

China is trying to define Obama as a weak leader, and by extension, the United States as a weakening country.

Dan Blumenthal, director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington

Obama’s visit focuses on working with Xi on issues like cybersecurity, climate change, North Korea’s nuclear threat, regional trade, and East Asian maritime security. Yet Xi — who is only in the second year of a likely 10-year presidency and who is feeling his oats at the helm of an increasingly regionally dominant power — is unlikely to be swayed from his perception of a lame-duck president reigning over a receding global power, some regional analysts say.