THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release                        September 22, 2009

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA

AND CHINESE PRESIDENT HU JINTAO

BEFORE MEETING

Waldorf Astoria Hotel

New York, New York

3:47 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  We welcome your delegation to New York.  I’m sorry that I didn’t have a chance to see you in L’Aquila, but your Councilor Dai did an excellent job representing your country.

I also have to say that I enjoyed seeing Vice Premier Wang as well as Councilor Dai at the SED meeting.  And Vice President Biden and I both had excellent meetings with Chairman Wu two weeks ago in the White House.  I should also mention that Vice Premier Wang showed me his jump shot, which is excellent.  (Laughter.)  How do you say “basketball shot” in Chinese?  (Laughter.)

As you know, I’m committed to pursuing a genuinely cooperative and comprehensive relationship with China.  We need to make our relationship more dynamic and effective, given the growing number of common global and regional challenges that our countries face.

And I’m very much looking forward to my visit to China in November.  I want to take cooperation on a range of global and regional and bilateral to a new level, and I appreciate the excellent cooperation that you have already showed to our advance team.  So we’re very welcome and I think that will be an excellent visit.

PRESIDENT HU JINTAO:  (As translated.)  Thank you, Mr. President, for your warm and friendly remarks.  I’m happy to see that now China-U.S. relationship has shown a sound growth momentum on the whole.

The agreement you and I arrived at, at our London meeting in a number of areas is being implemented, and our two sides are now working together to build a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship for the 21st century.

I always agree that a good China-U.S. relationship not only serves the fundamental interest of both China and the United States, and the two peoples, but also contributes to peace, stability and the prosperity in the Asia Pacific region and in the world at large.

The Chinese side is willing to work with the United States to keep our bilateral relationship firmly along the right course and deepen our pragmatic cooperation in a wide range of areas.  The Chinese side is also willing to work with the United States to properly handle sensitive issues to ensure that our relationship will continue to grow on a sound and steady course.

I’d also like to avail myself of this opportunity to thank you, Mr. President, for — (press pool ushered out.)

END                 3:53 P.M. EDT

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