Obama's iffy efforts in China

Barack Obama has certainly gone the extra mile with China. His administration has played up China's role as our banker and played down human rights questions that offend Chinese leaders. He has kept the Dalai Lama cooling his heels. And he has gone to Beijing to meet President Hu Jintao instead of waiting for Hu come to Washington.

This can be justified as statecraft only if it draws China into a much more cooperative role as a major power. That is clearly Mr. Obama's aim.

As he said to President Hu in Beijing, "The major challenges of the 21st century [are] challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone." To which President Hu replied, in seeming agreement, "There are growing global challenges, and countries in today's world have become more and more interdependent."

The language and the body language of the meeting seemed to be hopeful signs that the U.S. and China will find useful ways to cooperate.

But despite apparent goodwill the summit meeting has produced scant progress. The two agreed to go to next month's climate change conference in Copenhagen with a common position, though it is likely to disappoint advocates of a new Kyoto-style treaty seeking mandatory reduction targets.

On the other hand, President Hu complained about new U.S. tariffs on Chinese tires and steel and ignored Mr. Obama's call for reducing the imbalance in trade between the two countries. He also declined to back Mr. Obama's call for tougher sanctions against Iran and North Korea if they persist in seeking nuclear weapons.

In China Mr. Obama is perceived as playing a weak hand. "America needs China much more than China needs the U.S.," according to Yu Wanli, an American expert at Peking University. This perception is partly of Mr. Obama's own making. His budget envisions the need for trillions of Chinese loans over the next decade, and his soft-edged diplomacy raises questions about how much he is willing to give to get that financial support.

But the power gap between the two nations is still hugely in America's favor. For example, it will take the Chinese economy several decades to catch the United States, unless we fail to reform government spending and bring the deficit under control. In the end, friendly words and photo ops mean less in diplomacy than national interests and the way they are pursued. Mr. Obama should be wary of sending the wrong signals.