**Chinese President Hu Jintao has resisted pressure from President Obama to raise the value of the Chinese yuan.**He told Mr Obama that it would “neither balance Sino-US trade nor solve the [US] unemployment problem”, Chinese official news agency Xinhua reported.
For his part, Mr Obama called on his counterpart to switch to a more “market oriented” exchange rate.
The Chinese and US presidents were meeting at the sidelines of a 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington DC.
The meeting follows widespread speculation over the possibility of a trade war this year between the two nations.
Many economists, including Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, have criticised the Chinese for pegging their currency to the dollar.
They say this gives the Chinese an unfair advantage, by making Chinese exports artificially cheap, and this acts as a drag on the rest of the world economy.
The meeting follows a hasty visit to China by US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on 8 April, and a decision on 3 April to postpone a Treasury report, due to be delivered this month to Congress, on whether China should be deemed a “currency manipulator”.
If such a report had been delivered, it would have opened the way for Congress to impose trade sanctions on China, a move advocated by many congressmen.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.