Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
It may seem odd for the governor of a lightly populated agricultural state to be chosen as U.S. ambassador to China, especially amid escalating talk of a trade war with the major U.S. trading partner. But Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad boasts a 30-year relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.
China is moving after Donald Trump's election win to claim the mantle of the world's champion of free trade and the fight against climate change, prompting a melancholy warning from President Barack Obama that the U.S. risks getting left behind in Asia. Obama met in Peru on Sunday with leaders of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that Trump vowed to kill on the campaign trail along with the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.
During a meeting in Peru, Obama again urged all sides in the dispute over the South China Sea reduce tensions and resolve their disputes peacefully. He encouraged China to advance economic reforms, including a transition to a market-determined currency exchange rate.
Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping met for the final time Saturday, with the Chinese leader warning of a "hinge moment" in relations after Donald Trump's election. "I hope the two sides will work together to focus on cooperation, manage our differences, and make sure there is a smooth transition in the relationship and that it will continue to grow going forward," Xi said at the start of their last meeting together in Lima, Peru where they are attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
They'll have the perfect opportunity to make their appeal this week when Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a Pacific Rim summit as part of a visit to Ecuador, Peru and Chile. This is Xi's third time in Latin America since taking office in 2013, and when he wraps up the tour he will have visited 10 countries in the region - the same number as President Barack Obama, who has been in office twice as long.
Chinese President Xi Jinping today told US President-elect Donald Trump that cooperation was the "only right choice" to bolster ties between the two major powers, in the first contact with the US President-elect who in his campaign had accused China of snatching American jobs. In his first telephonic conversation since Trump won the US presidential election last week, Xi congratulated him on his election victory, state-run CCTV reported.
Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed the importance of relations with the US in a phone conversation with President-elect Donald Trump on Monday, opening communication with a politician who had been strongly critical of China during his campaign. State media reported that Xi congratulated Trump on his election and said co-operation was the "only correct choice" for China and the US, the world's two biggest economies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has told US President-elect Donald Trump in a telephone call that cooperation was the only choice for relations between the two countries, in their first interaction since the election. Mr Trump had lambasted China throughout the US election campaign, drumming up headlines with his pledges to slap 45 per cent tariffs on imported Chinese goods and to label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office.
U.S. President Barack Obama stands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during an arrival ceremony at the White House in Washington September 25, 2015. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has suspended its efforts to win congressional approval for his Asian free-trade deal before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, saying on Friday that TPP's fate was up to Trump and Republican lawmakers.
China stocks ended slightly lower on Monday as sentiment was dampened by warnings from top policymakers about asset bubbles and uncertainties around the U.S. presidential election. The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.1 percent, to 3,336.28, while the Shanghai Composite Index eased 0.1 percent to 3,100.49 points.
Recently-elected leader of the Phillipines Rodrigo Duterte has given his strongest signal yet that the country will cut its ties with the US. Duterte met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in Beijing, and said that he hopes to instigate a new era of close relations with the Asian powerhouse.
Talks this week between Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be closely scrutinized for signs of how seriously the new Philippine leader intends to pursue a shift away from Washington and toward Beijing, a move that could have a major impact on regional power dynamics. Duterte's elevation to the presidency 3 1/2 months ago has already turned relations between Washington and Manila on their head.
After lashing out at longtime ally America, the new Philippine president is making a state visit to China in a charm offensive that will help define how far he wants to shift allegiance from treaty ally the U.S. to an Asian superpower locked in a territorial standoff with his small, impoverished country. While he recalibrates Philippine relations with the world's big powers, his country's 65-year alliance with the United States - a key pillar of President Barack Obama's rebalance to Asia - hangs in the balance.
Featured Image: US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands during their meeting at the West Lake State Guest House in Hangzhou on September 3, 2016. The United States and China on September 3 formally joined the Paris climate deal, with US President Barack Obama hailing the accord as the 'moment we finally decided to save our planet'.
Josef Joffe is editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg and fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he teaches U.S. foreign policy. For a country supposedly in decline, the United States is getting a lot of attention these days.
When President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama were about to meet in the California desert resort of Sunnylands in June 2013, the US government had worked hard to paint China as a villain in cyberspace. The revelation made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden just days before the shirt-sleeves meeting, however, shocked the world.
WThe president of the United States lands with all the majesty of Air Force One, waiting to exit the front door and stride down the rolling staircase to the red-carpeted tarmac. Except that there is no rolling staircase.
The leaders of the U.S., France and Germany are taking a time away for economic talks in China to discuss the situation in Ukraine. The White House says President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit to review the status of the conflict.
Mostly unnoticed amid the political brawl over climate change, the United States has undergone a quiet transformation in how and where it gets its energy during Barack Obama's presidency, slicing the nation's output of polluting gases that are warming Earth. As politicians tangled in the U.S. and on the world stage, the U.S. slowly but surely moved away from emissions-spewing coal and toward cleaner fuels like natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar.
The political backlash over global trade is the backdrop to the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, and Chinese President Xi Jinping began with a plea against protectionism. Xi told the gathering of world leaders from the nation's 20 largest economies that their countries need to "enhance mutual understanding" in order to face a "crucial juncture for the world economy."