U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the Obama administration wants to find as much common ground as possible with China, calling U.S.-Chinese relations the key to world stability in the 21st century.
“We want to look for as many win-win opportunities as we can because this relationship is going to in many ways determine the peace, stability and prosperity of the 21st century,” Clinton said in an interview with the TODAY Show’s Meredith Vieira.
Clinton said the United States aims to have an open trading system with China and is looking to promote more cooperation with the country both on the economic front and on the “thorny” issue of North Korea’s nuclear program and “provocative behavior.”
The interview comes in the midst of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s arrival in Washington to visit President Barack Obama.
Not committed to a second term
Clinton also said Wednesday she intends to stay on as U.S. Secretary of State until the end of Obama’s first term in office but has not committed to a second term, adding that she is looking forward to stepping out of the public eye in the future.
“I think we’ve made a real difference in restoring American leadership and credibility around the world, but I do look forward to having a little more spare time and a few more hours just to, you know, take a deep breath,” Clinton said.
She added that she hopes that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will “stay and stay as long as he possibly can.”
Asked to respond to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s reassertion on the TODAY Show on Tuesday that Obama is a one-term president, Clinton said she “could not disagree with (Cheney) more.”
“I think President Obama has been playing the hand that he was dealt by the Bush-Cheney administration very well indeed,” Clinton said, “rescuing not just the American economy but the global economy, beginning to deal with a lot of our long-term competitive challenges.”
Reuters contributed to this story.
