Warming Fact or Fiction

BEIJING – Aiming beyond mere rivalry, President Barack Obama declared Monday in his first visit to China that the U.S. and the Chinese carry a “burden of leadership” as he meets with President Hu Jintao to confront climate change, nuclear proliferation and other urgent global problems. Economic and trade tensions shadowed their talks.

Obama is strongly suggesting that China, now a giant in economic impact as well as territory, must take a bigger role on such issues as global warming. He is also prodding the Chinese on freedom and Internet controls.

“I will tell you, other countries around the world will be waiting for us,” Obama said in an American-style town-hall discussion with Chinese university students in Shanghai, where he spent a day before flying to China’s capital for a state visit with President Hu. Read more »