China Diplomacy to Focus on Economy, G-20 Meeting, Yang Says

China’s diplomacy this year will focus on responding to the international financial crisis and supporting the country’s economic development, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said today.

A key part of that is preparing for an April summit of world leaders in London to coordinate a response to the crisis, according to Yang. Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama will meet for the first time there, Yang told reporters in Beijing.

“We should stay focused on one overarching effort, that is to ensure steady and rapid economic development,” Yang told reporters at a press conference during the annual meeting of the Chinese legislature in Beijing. China must also “make every effort to properly handle the impact of the international financial crisis.”

The nation’s leaders have said that their greatest contribution to combating the crisis is to maintain China’s expansion. Premier Wen Jiabao on March 5 set a growth target of 8 percent this year, even as much of the world faces economic contraction.

Yang said that increasing aid to Africa and purchasing trips such as last month’s to Europe, where the Chinese delegation inked $15 billion in deals, are also helping to counter slowing global growth.

G-20 Summit

The Group of 20 nations, or G-20, meeting in London should play a role in boosting public confidence, coordinating macroeconomic policies and improving regulation of financial markets, Yang said. China also hopes to make “the international order more fair and equitable,” he added.

The London summit follows a November meeting of leaders from the biggest developed and emerging nations. That meeting called for policies to spur growth and set a March 31 deadline for recommendations on tightening accounting standards, strengthening derivatives markets and increasing oversight of hedge funds and debt-rating firms.

“China wants to demonstrate itself as a responsible major power,” said Joseph Cheng, a politics professor at City University of Hong Kong. The country “wants to assume a larger voice in the redefining of the global economic institutions and global financial regulations.”

Asked how the U.S. can repair its reputation in China in the wake of a crisis that began in America, Yang emphasized the strength of relations between the world’s biggest and third- largest economies.

China is ready to work with the U.S. to “weather the storm” of the financial crisis, and the current international environment means that the two countries share “broader common interests,” Yang said. Relations with the Obama administration are “off to a good start,” he added.