Obama eyes 'frank and fruitful' relations with China's new leaders

US President Barack Obama has told Vice-Premier Wang Qishan that he will seek to maintain "energetic, frank and fruitful" relations with China's new leadership, state media reported yesterday.

Xinhua quoted Obama as saying he was also looking forward to his first meeting with new Communist Party chief Xi Jinping since his own re-election early last month and the naming of a new Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing just over a week later.

Wang's meeting with Obama in Washington during his three-day visit to the United States was the first face-to-face meeting between a member of China's new generation of leaders and the US president since Obama's re-election.

Wang, who was made a member of the party's supreme Politburo Standing Committee last month and put in charge of the party's anti-graft watchdog, said his visit would be his last to the US as a vice-premier.

Although Washington has yet to make details of Thursday's brief meeting at the White House public, Chinese analysts said it was symbolically important for both countries despite a lack of concrete results.

Xinhua quoted Wang as saying that the two countries should constantly enrich and expand bilateral relations and translate their consensus and intentions into policies and actions.

China "hopes to develop economic and trade co-operation with the US towards a wider range and a higher level" so as to jointly tackle regional and global challenges, Wang said.