Obama friendly but firm with China heir apparent

U.S. President Barack Obama told Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping on Tuesday that Beijing must play by the same trade rules as other major world powers and vowed to keep pressing China to clean up its human rights record.

In White House talks, Obama sought to reassure Xi that Washington welcomed China's "peaceful rise." But he also signaled that frictions would remain in a growing economic and military rivalry between the two countries, even as Beijing's political transition moves forward.

Xi's meeting with Obama was the centrepiece of a heavily scripted visit that could help the Chinese vice president boost his international standing and show he is capable of steering his country's relationship with Washington for the next decade.

Obama's firm message on trade, currency, human rights and global issues such as Syria was notable, given that the meetings were previewed as essentially sizing-up sessions.

He has assumed a tougher tone with China in recent months, and is under election-year pressure from Republican presidential candidates, who say his approach has been too conciliatory.

"With expanding power and prosperity also comes increased responsibilities," Obama said as he sat side by side with Xi in the Oval Office.

"We want to work with China to make sure that everybody is working by the same rules of the road when it comes to the world economic system, and that includes ensuring that there is a balanced trade flow," he said.

But Xi, who must also show a domestic audience he is ready to defend China's interests, later insisted to American

business leaders that Beijing was acting on U.S. concerns and asked for similar consideration from the Obama administration.

Obama, who was echoed in blunt terms by Xi's official host, Vice President Joe Biden, pressed the Chinese leadership to let the value of the country's currency rise and to do more to reduce the record $295.5 billion (188.3 billion pounds) U.S. trade deficit with China.

That has underscored concerns in Congress about Chinese practices that put U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage.

But U.S. leverage over Beijing is limited, not least because China is America's largest foreign creditor, and it remained unclear how much of Obama's rhetoric was political posturing at a time when voters' anti-China sentiment is running high.