2nd LD: Xi meets Obama on ties ahead of UN climate conference

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is attending a United Nations climate change conference here, met with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on Monday, discussing issues from bilateral ties to climate change talks.

Xi stressed China and the United States should stick to the right direction of building a new-type of major-country relations and the principles of non-conflict and non-confrontation, mutual respect as well as cooperation and win-win results.

He urged China and the United States to advance their practical communication and cooperation at bilateral, regional and global levels and manage differences and sensitive issues in a constructive manner, so as to maintain the sustained, healthy and stable development of bilateral relations, and safeguard and promote peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific and the world at large.

The Chinese president called on China and the United States to maintain exchanges at high and other levels and plan for their institutionalized dialogues and consultations to make sure that more positive and substantial achievements will be made.

In the face of weak global economic recovery, Xi said, countries should attach great importance to stabilizing growth, opposing trade protectionism and safeguarding a multilateral trade mechanism of openness, transparency and inclusiveness.

China and the United States should enhance coordination and cooperation on macro-economic policies and within the international financial framework, and strive for early conclusion of negotiations for bilateral investment agreement to create an environment of fair competition for each other's companies.

The Chinese president also called for greater contribution from both countries to properly solving major international and regional issues.

Pointing out that China and the United States should respect each other's core interests and major concerns, Xi urged the two countries to properly deal with differences through dialogue and consultation.

It is in the common interests of China and the United States to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, Xi said, demanding concrete actions from the U.S. side to support the peaceful development of the cross-strait relations.

On cyber issues, Xi urged China and the United States to meet each other half way, show sincerity and join efforts with the international community to formulate global rules for cyber space and build a peaceful, safe and transparent cyber space.

Obama said the United States is ready to maintain close communication with China on bilateral cooperation, global security, marco-economy, climate change and other hotspot issues through bilateral mechanisms like the strategic and economic dialogue and the army-to-army dialogue.

The United States and China further strengthening cooperation on global issues will benefit the whole world, Obama said.

The U.S. side is convinced that the United States and China have more common interests than differences, and is confident of the deep development of bilateral cooperation, according to the U.S. president.

Obama said he is looking forward to attending the G20 summit scheduled next year in China's eastern city of Hangzhou.

At the meantime, the two leaders agreed that the UN climate change conference presents an important opportunity for addressing climate change.

They stressed that China and the United States will step up cooperation and join efforts with other parties to strive for ambitious and successful achievements of this UN conference.

Around 150 heads of state or government are gathering here for the UN conference, officially called the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The highly-anticipated meeting aims to yield a new international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases beyond 2020, when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires. Endi