Obama to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao at G20 in Mexico Tuesday

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President Barack Obama will meet next week with China’s President Hu Jintao at the G20 summit in Mexico, the White House announced on Friday.

Deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters that the two leaders, who last met in Seoul at the nuclear summit in March, would discuss key international issues, including Iran, Syria, and North Korea when they meet next Tuesday.

The announcement came as the Group of 20 bloc of the world’s greatest economic powers prepared to meet next week in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos.

The leaders of the world’s biggest economies are also to take up the debt crisis in Europe, and frantic global efforts to stabilize the eurozone’s finances in an effort to stave off a collapse that could damage economies worldwide.

Beijing on Wednesday called on leaders at the G20 summit to express their confidence in Europe, which has had a negative impact on US and Chinese growth.

China has looked on with concern as the debt crisis deepens in Europe — its largest export market — and impacts its own economy.

Growth fell to 8.1 percent in China in the first quarter of 2012 from 9.7 percent a year earlier, due in part to Europe’s debt woes that have curbed business activity.

Last week China cut its base interest rate for the first time in three years in order to boost growth, the clearest indicator yet that the motor of world manufacturing is losing steam.

[President Barack Obama via AFP]