Obama meets Chinese Premier after week of wrangles

US President Barack Obama prodded China's Premier Wen Jiabao Saturday on maritime territorial rows and economic wrangles amid signs of Chinese scorn for his Pacific diplomacy push. The talks followed a week of increasingly sharp exchanges between the two powers after Obama repeatedly betrayed impatience with Beijing's economic record during his week-long tour of the Pacific. Obama and Wen met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit, after the Chinese premier asked for more time to continue a conversation with the US leader that began at an official dinner on Friday night. US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said the talks focused mainly on economics, reflecting Wen's principal portfolio. Obama discussed concerns about what Washington sees as the artificially low value of the yuan and trade disputes that he raised with China's President Hu Jintao in Hawaii last week, Donilon said. He also mentioned South China Sea territorial disputes which the United States wants to discuss in general terms in the summit, but which China says should be confined to talks between the individual regional nations concerned. "The president indicated that they would have a further conversation about it in the context of the East Asia Summit leaders' retreat," Donilon said, adding that several Southeast Asian nations had raised maritime issues with Obama. "The US position here is a principled position -- the United States is a Pacific power, it is a trading power, it is a maritime power. "The United States has an interest in the freedom of navigation, the free flow of commerce, a peaceful resolution of disputes (but) we don't have a claim, we don't take sides in the claims." Wen and Obama met on the same day that a commentary by China's official Xinhua news agency dripped with contempt for his attempt to show that the United States considers itself a Pacific power and will remain so. "The US move has fuelled strong suspicions from the region. Many countries wonder what kind of 'leadership' America aspires to assume in the future," the commentary said. "If the United States sticks to its Cold War mentality and continues to engage with Asian nations in a self-assertive way, it is doomed to incur repulsion in the region." "It is also called upon to guard against sparking disputes and encroaching on others' interests," the commentary said, in an apparent reference to the row over the strategic South China Sea. China sees the US Pacific initiatives as intruding into its sphere of influence, and Wen warned again Friday against interference by "external forces" in the territorial wrangle. China claims all of the South China Sea, as does Taiwan, while four Southeast Asian countries declare ownership of parts of it, with Vietnam and the Philippines accusing Chinese forces of increasing aggression there. The region is a conduit for more than one-third of the world's seaborne trade and half its traffic in oil and gas, and major petroleum deposits are believed to lie below the seabed. Washington says the security of crucial maritime trade routes deserves serious dialogue, even if Saturday's summit -- the first to be attended by a US president -- is not a tribunal for deciding disputes. But China, the biggest trading partner of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc, prefers to negotiate with its weaker regional neighbours individually rather than collectively. Obama also irked Beijing this week by announcing a deployment of 2,500 US Marines to Australia and with his support for expanding negotiations on a pan-Pacific trade deal in which China is not included. China is also likely to be concerned by a US effort to promote reform in Myanmar, its resource-rich ally and southern neighbour. On a busy day of diplomacy in Bali, Wen also met the leaders of South Korea and Japan, and the trio committed to working together to resolve the North Korean nuclear standoff, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. "The three leaders shared an understanding that they should cooperate closely at a time when uncertainties in the world economy are growing, so they can contribute to stability and development in Northeast Asia and reviving the world economy," South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak's office said.