Yokohama, Japan - Intensifying friction over currencies and trade loomed on Wednesday as leaders of major economies converged on Asia for back-to-back summits aimed at safeguarding the still fragile global recovery.
President Barack Obama and other top leaders were arriving in Seoul, South Korea, for a two-day Group of 20 summit with the ambitious agenda of remaking the world economy to nurture stable growth and prevent a repeat of the financial meltdown in 2008.
But that gathering, and a weekend summit of Pacific Rim leaders in the Japanese port city of Yokohama, are taking place as those nations struggle to reconcile conflicting strategies for achieving those aims.
G20 officials - whose countries comprise 85% of all economic activity - have pledged not to use their currencies as trade weapons. But tensions reignited last week when the US Federal Reserve announced a $600bn bond buying plan that angered many trading partners.
Obama, wrapping up a brief visit to Indonesia after touring India, defended the Fed's move as a way to hasten a narrowing of huge gaps in trade and investment by engineering a weaker US dollar - thus putting pressure on countries with large trade and foreign exchange surpluses.
In a letter he sent to other G20 members, Obama defended moves to help the US economy because he said its strong recovery would be the country's most important contribution to a global recovery.
Other countries complain excess cash may flood into their markets seeking higher returns, pushing their currency values higher, squeezing their exporters and inflating bubbles in stocks or other assets that could destabilise their financial systems.
G20 financial officials made little headway Wednesday in resolving the currency standoff, a summit spokesperson, Kim Yoon-kyung, told reporters in Seoul.
"Critical agendas, such as establishing a clear guideline on limiting current account surpluses and deficits to sustainable levels and recent moves by Washington to print more money, were put on the table, but only highlighted differences between member countries," Kim said.
Such issues were left unresolved to allow work on other issues that must be included in a declaration at the summit's end, he said.
The G20 first convened a leaders summit two years ago and has since supplanted the Group of Seven advanced nations as countries like China and India gained economic and political stature.
The aim is to craft a new global economic order to replace one powered by the US running huge trade deficits while countries like China, Germany and Japan accumulate vast surpluses. One US proposal, for example, calls for setting guidelines for when such imbalances might become potentially destabilizing.
Misplaced
China announced on Wednesday that its trade surplus surged to its second-highest level this year in October, raising pressure on Beijing over its currency, which the US and other trading partners say is kept artificially weak, making its exports more competitive overseas.
Beijing maintains that the focus on its currency policies is misplaced.
If either side "chooses a confrontational approach, I think everybody will come out as losers," said Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, an envoy to the Seoul talks.
On somewhat less confrontational issues, the G20 leaders are expected to endorse greater supervision of financial institutions and support giving developing countries more say in the International Monetary Fund.
In Yokohama, trade and foreign ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum were mulling moves toward a Pacific-wide free trade zone that would encompass more than half the world's economic output.
"We are quite committed to that. We believe that open trade is indispensable to overcome the financial crisis and the economic crisis," Mexican foreign minister Patricia Espinosa said on the sidelines of the meetings.