Obama Says He Is Close to Afghan War Decision

BEIJING — President Obama said Wednesday he is “very close to a decision” on a troop increase for the war in Afghanistan, and will make his case to the American people for his Afghan strategy in the next “several weeks.”

“I am very confident that when I announce the decision, the American people will have a lot of clarity about what we’re doing, how we’re going to succeed, how much this thing is going to cost,” Mr. Obama told CNN in an interview at his hotel in Beijing. Most important, he said, is that he is asking “what’s the end game on this thing, which I think is something that unless you impose that kind of discipline, could end up leading to a multi-year occupation that won’t serve the interests of the United States.”

Mr. Obama said that his “preference” on Afghanistan “would be not to hand off anything to the next president,” but did not indicate if that meant he plans to pull out most American troops by 2012. “We have a vital interest in making sure that Afghanistan is sufficiently stable, that it can’t infect the entire region with violent extremism.”

He said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai “has served his country in important ways,” but added that Mr. Karzai also has some weaknesses.

Mr. Obama’s comments came as part of a series of interviews he conducted with the major American television networks from his hotel in Beijing on his last day in China. He arrived in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday afternoon, the final stop on his Asian trip.

Before leaving Beijing, he met with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao,

Mr. Wen said China does not seek a trade surplus with the United States and wants to balance flows, striking a conciliatory note but avoiding public comment on currency rifts, Reuters reported. Mr. Wen’s comments during the meeting were posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry Web

“China does not pursue a trade surplus,” Mr. Wen said, adding that his government wants “to encourage a steady balancing of bilateral trade, ” according to Reuters. “Lively global trade and investment will help to overcome the international financial crisis and accelerate global economic recovery.”

China has come under heavy pressure, not only from the United States but also from Europe and several Asian countries, to revise its policy of keeping its currency, the renminbi, pegged at an artificially low value against the dollar to help promote its exports. Some economists say China must take that step to prevent the return of large trade and financial imbalances that may have contributed to the recent financial crisis.

Mr. Obama is ending his Asia trip in Seoul, where he is expected to discuss trade, as well as efforts to get North Korea to return to the 6-party talks that are meant to eventually denuclearize the Korean peninsular.

On Tuesday, in six hours of meetings, at two dinners and during a stilted 30-minute news conference in which President Hu Jintao did not allow questions, President Obama was confronted, on his first visit, with a fast-rising China more willing to say no to the United States.

On topics like Iran (Mr. Hu did not publicly discuss the possibility of sanctions), China’s currency (he made no nod toward changing its value) and human rights (a joint statement bluntly acknowledged that the two countries “have differences”), China held firm against most American demands.

With China’s micro-management of Mr. Obama’s appearances in the country, the trip did more to showcase China’s ability to push back against outside pressure than it did to advance the main issues on Mr. Obama’s agenda, analysts said.

“China effectively stage-managed President Obama’s public appearances, got him to make statements endorsing Chinese positions of political importance to them and effectively squelched discussions of contentious issues such as human rights and China’s currency policy,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a China specialist at Cornell University. “In a masterstroke, they shifted the public discussion from the global risks posed by Chinese currency policy to the dangers of loose monetary policy and protectionist tendencies in the U.S.”

White House officials maintained they got what they came for — the beginning of a needed give-and-take with a surging economic giant. With a civilization as ancient as China’s, they argued, it would be counterproductive — and reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s style — for Mr. Obama to confront Beijing with loud chest-beating that might alienate the Chinese. Mr. Obama, the officials insisted, had made his points during private meetings and one-on-one sessions.

“I do not expect, and I can speak authoritatively for the president on this, that we thought the waters would part and everything would change over the course of our almost two-and-a-half-day trip to China,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman. “We understand there’s a lot of work to do and that we’ll continue to work hard at making more progress.”

Several China experts noted that Mr. Obama was not leaving Beijing empty-handed. The two countries put out a five-point joint statement pledging to work together on a variety of issues. The statement calls for regular exchanges between Mr. Obama and Mr. Hu, and asks that each side pay more attention to the strategic concerns of the other. The statement also pledges that they will work as partners on economic issues, Iran and climate change.

But despite a conciliatory tone that began weeks ago when Mr. Obama declined to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, before visiting China to avoid offending China’s leaders, it remains unclear whether Mr. Obama made progress on the most pressing policy matters on the American agenda in China or elsewhere in Asia.

The president has had to fend off criticism from American conservatives that he appeared to soften the American stance on the positioning of troops on the Japanese island of Okinawa, and for bowing to Japan’s emperor.