BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China will chart its own course in reforming the yuan, President Hu Jintao said as President Barack Obama renewed his call for a more flexible Chinese currency.

The two heads of state, meeting for the first time since Sino-U.S. tensions over the yuan threatened in recent months to escalate into a serious trade dispute, chose their words carefully and, in the view of investors, left the door open for Beijing to resume appreciation in the coming weeks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama repeated on Monday his call for more yuan flexibility during a meeting with China’s Hu Jintao, deploying careful diplomatic language while Beijing stressed dialogue.

A later report from the official Chinese news agency reflected a stiffer tone from Hu, the Chinese president, but in Washington there was a deliberate effort to stress the cordial nature of the talks.

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on
Monday repeated his call for more yuan flexibility during a
meeting with China’s Hu Jintao, deploying careful diplomatic
language while Beijing stressed dialogue.

“The president reaffirmed his view that it is important for
a … sustained and balanced global economic recovery that
China move toward a more market-oriented exchange rate,”
Jeffrey Bader, a top White House adviser, told reporters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s drive for new sanctions on Iran picked up momentum on Monday in talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao that included a wide-ranging discussion of U.S.-Chinese economic differences.

Their face-to-face session came at the start of a two-day nuclear security summit of nearly 50 countries aimed at finding ways to prevent terrorists from gaining access to nuclear materials.

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States on Monday reiterated its call for China’s currency to be market-based, as lawmakers warned they would act if there was no movement from China on revaluing the yuan.

“The president has spoken repeatedly and recently that China’s currency must be market-based,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China’s currency is clearly undervalued, but pressure on Beijing to make its currency rise in value won’t trim the U.S. trade deficit with China or reduce the jobless rate, say American economists.

Political pressure is building on the Obama administration to name China a “currency manipulator” in a mid-April report, and lawmakers are threatening to slap tariffs on Chinese goods to offset any export subsidy a cheap currency gives China.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China’s currency is clearly undervalued, but pressure on Beijing to make its currency rise in value won’t trim the U.S. trade deficit with China or reduce the jobless rate, say American economists.

Political pressure is building on the Obama administration to name China a “currency manipulator” in a mid-April report, and lawmakers are threatening to slap tariffs on Chinese goods to offset any export subsidy a cheap currency gives China.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China retains a raft of non-tariff barriers, including tax rebates and quotas, that discriminate against foreign manufactured and farm goods, the U.S. Trade Representative’s official said in its annual report to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.

The report, along with two new spotlights on technical barriers to manufactured goods and farm exports, comes at a time of rising economic tensions with China over Beijing’s exchange rate policy and an import substitution campaign.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Chinese official said on Wednesday China would reform its currency policy gradually and keep the exchange rate stable, rejecting mounting U.S. calls to allow the yuan to rise more quickly.

Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, in Washington amid U.S.-China trade and political tensions, said changing the exchange rate was not the way to fix a huge bilateral trade gap and could upset the world economy.