BEIJING - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks with top Chinese leaders Wednesday but failed to find any agreement over Syria or the South China Sea and also had her meeting with the country's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping cancelled at the last moment.
Clinton was informed late on Tuesday night that Xi Jinping, 59, would not meet her.
Many suspected it to be a deliberate snub. The state-run Global Times newspaper said: "Many Chinese people do not like Hillary Clinton [] She makes the Chinese public dislike and be wary of the United States."
Xi, who is expected to be anointed to the topmost post of the Communist party after the 18th Party Congress in mid-October, was reported to have been laid up with a back pain.
He cancelled his other engagements too, including a meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told a joint press conference with Clinton that there need not be "unnecessary speculation" on it.
Clinton arrived in Beijing on Tuesday on what is stated to be her last visit as Secretary of State before the November presidential polls.
Her talks with the Chinese leadership, including Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, the president and premier failed to find much common ground. The talks focused mainly on China's disputes with its neighbours in South China Sea and Sino-Japan row over islands in East China Sea.
On Syria, Clinton said: "It is no secret that we have been disappointed by Russia and China's actions blocking tougher U.N. Security Council resolutions, and we hope to continue to unite behind a real path forward to end the violence in Syria."
Yang said a solution to Syria should not be imposed from the outside.
"I think history will judge that China's position on the Syria question is a promotion of the appropriate handling of the situation."
On the thorny problem of sovereignty in the South China Sea, Clinton urged China to work on a multilateral code of conduct between China and Asean nations to lower tensions.
Yang said freedom of navigation in the sea was assured and there would not "ever be issues in that area in the future". But he said China's position on the South China Sea was clear cut.
"China has sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters," he said.
Meanwhile, China reacted angrily to news that the Japanese government will press ahead with the purchase of a set of islands it claims sovereignty of.
Source: http://www.shanghainews.net/index.php?sid/208918666/scat/9366300fc9319e9b
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