President Obama to China: Uncensored society is healthy

BEIJING – President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China yesterday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

The president’s message during a town hall-style meeting with university students in Shanghai, China’s commercial hub, focused on one of the trickiest issues separating China’s communist government and the United States – human rights.It was a delicately balanced message and Obama couched his admonitions with words calling for co-operation, heavy with praise and American humility.’I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable,’ Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. ‘They can begin to think for themselves.’The first-term US president then flew to Beijing where Obama quickly drove to the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse for Obama’s third meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Trade, climate change and economic issues were expected to dominate. The two leaders had dinner in the government complex and were scheduled to meet again Tuesday.In brief remarks before their initial talks, Hu noted Obama’s meeting with students, calling the session ‘quite lively’.Obama smiled broadly throughout the Chinese leaders welcoming remarks, then told Hu that ‘the world recognises the importance of the US-Chinese relationship’ in tackling global problems.Obama’s message, aside from his proddings on human rights, was clear: few global challenges can be solved unless the world’s only superpower and its rising competitor work together. He and his advisers have insisted in virtually all public utterances since he arrived in Japan on Friday: ‘We do not seek to contain China’s rise.’During Obama’s opening statement to university students in Shanghai, he spoke bluntly about the benefits of individual freedoms in a country known for limiting them.’We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation,’ Obama said. Then he added that freedom of expression and worship, unfettered access to information and unrestricted political participation are not unique to the United States; instead, he called them ‘universal rights’. – Nampa-AP