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US President Barack Obama’s tour of Asia ends in Beijing today, 17 November, on an upbeat note as he and Chinese President Hu Jintao announced together that they have had positive, frank talks and that they should work more closelyto improve international cooperation. Their statements could mark a turning point, at least in terms of dialogue, which has often been negative on both sides, for several years, but Western observers are skeptical that the talks will lead to substantive changes, and the Wall Street Journal points out that this visit was the most tightly controlled of the three most recent US presidential visits. Hu and Obama say they have reached a consensus on many issues, notably the need to avoid protectionism and further global financial crises. Future cooperation will include healthcare research, especially stem cell and pandemics research. Obama invited Hu to visit the US in 2010 and Hu accepted.

US media coverage of the meeting has been muted, although the meeting made European headlines: NPR barely mentions it, the Washington Post‘s front page made it a secondary headline, while Sarah Palin, who ran for vice president in the November 2008 elections, grabs a larger space with the headline “Is there anything we don’t already know about Sarah Palin?”

Links to other sites: AP/Yahoo, BBC,  New York Times, Xinhua (joint statement), Wall Street Journal