Amid complex relationship, Obama seeks cooperation with China

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RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF. It's being billed as "the shirtsleeve summit." On the grounds of a lavish and verdant 200-acre estate in this resort town, President Obama and his recently empowered Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, will try to establish a new working relationship.

Though parts of the estate, known as Sunnylands, are opulent, even palatial, it's still a far more casual and informal setting than the White House in Washington, D.C. or the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where top-level talks between the leaders of the world's two most powerful economies usually take place.

"We felt that having this type of wide-ranging, informal setting for discussions between the two leaders would allow them to cover the broadest possible agenda," said a senior administration official.

The two days of talks beginning Friday afternoon are intended to "forge a working relationship that we will be relying on very much in the years to come," the senior official told reporters on condition that his or her identity was not disclosed.

The White House is decidedly not forecasting any breakthrough agreements between Presidents Obama and Xi, but neither do they minimize the importance of the talks.

"The U.S.-China relationship is as important as any bilateral relationship for shaping the trajectory of the global economy and global security in the 21st century," said one of three officials briefing reporters.

It's a coverall reference to the issues Mr. Obama will be raising with Xi, who assumed his nation's presidency from Hu Jintao on March 14. He already had the post of General Secretary of China's Communist Party. His name is pronounced shee jihn-peeng.

U.S. officials see it as an encouraging sign that Xi agreed to a meeting "a little bit less scripted perhaps than the formalities of a State Visit," said another senior administration official.

Mr. Obama seeks a cooperative relationship with Xi.

"The relationship that we have with China is broad and complex, and it is very important for these kinds of meetings to take place for that relationship to be developed," said press secretary Jay Carney at a White House briefing this week.

Carney made no secret of Mr. Obama's intention to raise concerns about the hacking of U.S. government and industrial computer systems by cyber-intruders traced to China.

"Governments are responsible for cyber attacks that take place from within their borders," a senior administration official told reporters. "As a part of our interests in protecting U.S. businesses, we will raise with China any concerns we have about intrusions we believe emanate from China."

The official specifically mentioned "cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property."

Mr. Obama will also be seeking Xi's help in getting China to exercise its influence on North Korea's unpredictable and erratic leader Kim Jong Un in the hope he will finally agree to abandon his nation's nuclear weapon and missile program and end his belligerent and provocative approach to South Korea.

Also on the American agenda for the talks are trade and currency matters. The U.S. has long felt trade with China was not on a sufficiently level playing field because of its self-serving policies on exports to its markets and valuating its currency to its own advantage.

When the Sino-American diplomacy at Sunnylands gets underway, White House officials have told reporters to expect opening statements from the two leaders and also a limited opportunity to ask them a few questions after their first round of talks. But it will stop well short of a full-fledged press conference.

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Though Xi Jinping's wife, Peng Liyuan, is accompanying him to the Sunnylands Summit, not so Mrs. Obama. Some in China portray it as a snub, but White House officials say Chinese planners were told in advance that Mrs. Obama would not be attending the gathering. Aides say she has family obligations back at the White House.

It should be noted that the Sunnylands estate offers a spectacular golf course, but CBS News has been told the two leaders will resist the temptation for a Summit on the Links. However, Mr. Obama is extending his stay by one day after the Summit concludes on Saturday. It's possible he may take a swing at the Sunnylands course before returning to D.C.

During President Reagan's annual visits each New Year's to the estate that was once home to the late billionaire publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg, he played what he liked to call his "annual game of golf" there. So it's a golf course with a presidential history to which Mr. Obama may add before the weekend is out.