<div>Chinese love their hogs, but so do the Americans. And the last thing US President Barack Obama would have wanted to hear days before he met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a summit in California was that the famous Smithfield bacon on the table would soon be owned by a Chinese company. But that’s what he’s had to – a sign of the changing times, some would say.<br /><br />For the Chinese, increasingly keen to acquire American businesses, the friendly takeover of Smithfield Foods — the world’s biggest pork processor — by Shuanghui International for $4.5 billion is yet another step towards meeting global ambitions of its companies. For many American politicians, worried over trade with China and Beijing’s alleged cyber-attacks on US. institutions, this is bad news. They would try and stop the deal. American bacon can’t be taken away by the Chinese, they would argue.<br /><br />But for Obama and Xi, the buyout should provide an opportunity to focus on what needs more attention in bilateral relations between the world’s two biggest economies — cooperation. A succulent piece of Smithfield bacon, as yet American, should give them a good reason to look at their relationship differently — more as two large countries trying to adjust to each other’s needs than be seen as distrusting foes.<br /><br />The importance of the summit can’t be negated. It is the first meeting between the heads of the state of the two countries since the leadership transition in China. It is also being held in an informal setting, away from the official trappings of a visit to a capital. Most important, the visit comes at the end of a whirlwind tours to key nations by the Chinese leadership.<br /><br />China’s new leaders are keen to show their faces to the world. For Xi, who began his foreign visits with a trip to Russia, a neighbor China shares a more than 4000 km-long boundary and has followed it with swift touchdowns in Africa and the Caribbean, the United States is the final stop on his diplomatic iternary. Premier Li Keqiang has done his rounds, making another neighbor India his first pit stop and then travelling to Pakistan and Europe.<br /><br />There will be a lot more than the bacon on the table in California for Obama and Xi, both of whom face massive domestic challenges, when they meet and start a process to getting to know each other. Personal relationship between leaders is always helpful to diplomacy, and this will be a test for a second-term US president and his new, long-term Chinese counterpart to set the tone of bilateral ties that will influence global politics for at least the next decade and maybe beyond.<br /><br />If the two leaders can get along just as well as Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev did, or Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong did, there could be dramatic shift in the way the United States and China see each other and their respective global ambitions. Washington’s perception of the Chinese threat might change slightly, and the Chinese — who feel they are being kept out of the US economy — might feel differently.<br /><br />There are of course niggling bilateral issues that have strained ties between the two countries of late – North Korea, China’s muscle flexing in the seas off its coast, the US challenge to China in form of its Asian pivot policy, Washington’s charges of cyber-attacks against China and of course the trade battle. The hawks in Washington would want Obama to push the Chinese to address them.<br /><br />The focus, however, should be on the bacon, as the two economic behemoths battle domestic challenges of creating jobs and ensuring growth picks up again. China needs to restructure its economy to manage discontent among its people who are now used to double-digit growth that has fuelled prosperity. The United States is still battling to limp out of the global financial crisis that has shaved off growth in the world’s biggest economy. A turnaround in the US economy is good news for China, as that would only help raise Beijing’s exports.<br /><br />The math looks simple: Chinese companies have the money to invest in the American economy to create jobs that would help Obama. While they have been slow in getting into the US market – mostly because of scared American politicians and regulators – Chinese companies have the potential to increase their investments quickly if they have an opportunity.<br /><br />Like in the case of Smithfield, the Chinese may not want to change the management. They would, however, pump in more money to expand business and create jobs, a sore need for Obama and the United States.<br /><br />It is, however, not as simple as it seems. A battle for global influence will always come in the way of the normal relations between the two countries. But if Obama and Xi can work out a deal that helps them fix domestic problems they will help address some of their external challenges too. The need, therefore, is to ensure that the sausage doesn’t roll off the breakfast table. A stable China is good for everybody.<br /><br />(<em>The columnist, a former newspaper editor, is President, Public Affairs, Genesis Burson-Marsteller and co-founder of Public Affairs Forum of India. He has a keen interest in China and Southeast Asia. Views are persona</em>l)</div>
