The APEC Summit Closes With a ‘Historic’ Climate Deal Between the U.S. and China

On Nov. 9, the eve of President Obama’s arrival in Beijing for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, a bright moon climbed across a dark sky. This took months of staging: to clear the air for arriving dignitaries, the government closed factories, cut traffic and ordered workers home. But by the time Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping sat down to dinner on Nov. 10, the smog was back, and the moon rose, as it usually does, through a toxic pall.

And so went the summit: days of diplomatic murk punctuated by carefully created blue sky. The highlight was the announcement, on Nov. 12, of an ambitious Sino-U.S. plan to curb emissions to tackle climate change. The agreement, which was the result of months of negotiations, includes new targets for the U.S. and China’s first-ever commitment to stop emission growth by 2030. The broader goal is to “inject momentum” into efforts to negotiate a new global pact on emissions in Paris in 2015.

In a joint press conference, President Obama hailed the accord with China as a “historic agreement” and a “major milestone in the U.S.-China relationship.”The past few years have been tough on those ties. China bristled at U.S. plans to “pivot” to Asia; the U.S. is unhappy with China’s assertive posture on various territorial disputes, as well as on human rights and trade. All this, says Cheng Li, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, has created a “difficult atmosphere for U.S.-China relations.”

The strategy seems to be to find ways to collaborate on issues of common concern while steering clear of the more contentious stuff. In addition to the landmark emissions goals, the U.S. and China reached an understanding on tariffs for technology products, and a military accord aimed at preventing clashes in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Xi, in a rare appearance before the press, said China would “make our due share of contribution” to peace and stability in the region. “Both President Obama and I believe that when China and the United States work together we can become an anchor of world stability and a propeller of world peace,” he said.

“Counter to the heated rhetoric over the last few years, U.S.-China relations show more signs of cooperation than confrontation right now,” says Yun Sun, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.–based Stimson Center. “The key question is, does this adjustment reflect a change in foreign policy in the longer run?”

And that, of course, is very complicated. The last time it hosted APEC, in Shanghai in 2001, China was an emerging market and still finding its way geopolitically. Now China is the world’s second largest economy and a coming superpower. It deals with the U.S. as an equal.

At APEC, both Washington and Beijing pushed for different trade agreements, with the U.S. pushing the Trans Pacific Partnership, which excludes China, and Beijing backing its own Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific. China also used the run-up to the summit to announce $40 billion for infrastructure development along what it calls the new Silk Road — a network of railways and airports across Central Asia.

“This is a message for the U.S.,” says Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. “China wants to be at the center of economic life in the region.”

Political differences are also acute. The U.S. and its allies, including Japan and the Philippines, are no closer to accepting China’s territorial claims than before. Beijing still seems to think the U.S. and other unspecific foreign forces somehow have a hand in the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And the ruling Communist Party refuses to budge on visas for reporters from the New York Times and Bloomberg, who have been given the cold shoulder since running stories about the wealth of China’s top leaders, including Xi.

At the Nov. 12 press conference to close out the meetings, the talk of cooperation was undercut somewhat by awkward exchanges. Xi, unaccustomed to questions from the foreign press, first ignored a question from a Times reporter about the visa issue, turning instead to a reporter from the state-controlled China Daily. After reading a response to the China Daily, he returned to press access, sort of.

“In Chinese,” he said, “we have a saying: The party which has created the problem should be the one to resolve it. So perhaps we should look into the problem to see where the cause lies.”

Barack Obama wins 1000 new fans with University of Queensland G20 speech

The US president says Asia's security must not be based on intimidation of small nations by big ones.

Barack Obama told students in Brisbane, Australia - where he is attending the G20 summit - that security in the region must depend on mutual alliances. He said there was "no question" over his commitment to Asia-Pacific allies, referring to US efforts to strengthen strategic ties with the region. The two-day G20 summit will focus on promoting economic growth. World leaders are expected to expand on plans agreed by G20 finance ministers in February to boost global growth by 2% in five years. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also urged those attending to meet the challenges posed by Ebola, climate change and the conflict in Ukraine. Meeting on the margins of the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged his French counterpart Francois Hollande to join him to defuse tensions between the two countries over Ukraine.
France has withheld the delivery of two warships to the Russian navy over its actions in Ukraine.
The Russian president also discussed "rebuilding relations" with the UK after a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Even she seemed surprised to have made it, but she shook off the shock quickly. After all, Obama was only 30 centimetres away. Others followed suit. Two women managed to leap, jump and dash their way through close enough for the Obama-selfie. They were so excited after, they could barely speak. And the "power of the man and the message," as former deputy prime minister Wayne Swan put it following the speech, was enough to bring even the most bitter of enemies together, if even for a moment. Queensland Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk and LNP Treasurer Tim Nicholls stood together, a little in awe, both politely struggling to be the first to speak.

Mr Nicholls didn't shake his hand, "I left that to the school kids", but was very impressed with his message about America standing with Australia over MH17. Ms Palaszcuk was just "inspired" particularly by the focus on "young people's hopes". Assistant minister for the Premier Deb Frecklington, who has been everywhere this G20, got the closest. "He shook my hand and asked me my name and what I did," she said. "And he said 'that's a very long title. Does it fit on a business card?'." But it was the students who were most affected. And that, given the President directed the majority of his speech towards them, was the point.
"It was such a honour, it was unbelievable," Lily Treston said.
She and fellow Year 12  Mt St Michael's College students ("we're in the Premier's electorate") described the speech, just under a hour, as an "inspiration". "You feel as though he is reaching out to just you," Sophia Aston said. "As if he is just speaking to you specifically. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity."
Griffith University student John Hopper stood at the back once the President had left the building, contemplating. "It is a lot to take in," he said.
"As the President said, there are a lot of opportunities for us out there. It was inspiring and it has left me with a lot of things to think about over the next few years. It was something I will never forget."
Reid Barry still had stars in his eyes. He'd lost his friends, but was distracted from finding them, as he thought over the speech. "I thought it was fantastic," he said. Why? He paused. "I don't know. It was just great."
The room cleared out and photos and selfies were compared. "Ermagawd!  One student said.  "I just got a selfie with Obama!" "I can't believe I heard him speak," another said.  "Maybe that's even better."

Secret Service Director of USA Julia Pierson Resigns

Julia Pierson resigned under pressure as director of the Secret Service on Wednesday after failing to quell a bipartisan political furor over repeated breaches of White House security and losing the confidence of the president her agency is charged with protecting. Ms. Pierson’s support in the West Wing began crumbling late Tuesday, in large part because she did not tell the White House of a security failure in Atlanta last month when an armed man was allowed to ride in an elevator with President Obama at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite meeting with the president last week, Ms. Pierson informed him about the incident only minutes before it was reported in the news media on Tuesday evening, officials said. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Ms. Pierson’s delay in telling the president was a crucial part of “recent and accumulating reports about the performance of the agency” that led Mr. Obama to conclude that the Secret Service needed new leadership. After Ms. Pierson appeared at a brutal congressional hearing on Tuesday, when she had to explain to a House panel how an armed intruder jumped the White House fence on Sept. 19 and made it as far into the mansion as the East Room, she woke Wednesday to mounting calls for her resignation and withering criticism, some of it from Democrats.

By noon, Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House’s top Democrat, had both called for independent inquiries into the security missteps, including the Secret Service’s response to a 2011 incident in which a man shot seven high-powered bullets into the south facade of the White House. But Ms. Pierson was already on her way out. In a meeting Wednesday morning with Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security — which oversees the Secret Service — she offered her resignation, and he accepted it. In a statement, Mr. Johnson said he had appointed Joseph Clancy, a former Secret Service agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division, to become acting director. Mr. Johnson also bowed to demands for an outside inquiry and said he would appoint a “distinguished panel of independent experts” to report recommendations by Dec. 15. For Ms. Pierson, the resignation ended a tumultuous two weeks that started when Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, an Iraq war veteran, evaded capture as he jumped the White House fence, ran across the North Lawn, barged through the unlocked door of the North Portico and knocked down an agent as he sprinted through the Entrance Hall to the Cross Hall to the East Room, the site of presidential news conferences and other formal events.

The outrage about the failure to stop Mr. Gonzalez escalated with news reports that law enforcement officers had previously encountered him, armed and with a map of the White House. Anger intensified after The Washington Post reported that the Secret Service had misled the public about how far Mr. Gonzalez got inside the White House. Initial reports by the Secret Service gave the impression that Mr. Gonzalez had been stopped just inside the North Portico.

But the tipping point, according to Mr. Earnest, came Tuesday night, when The Washington Examiner reported the incident in Atlanta. Law enforcement officials later confirmed that Secret Service officials were initially unaware that the private security guard riding in the elevator with Mr. Obama was armed. They discovered his weapon, they said, after he started taking pictures of the president and acting unprofessionally.

Officials said the Secret Service quickly began to investigate the incident. Hours after it occurred, on Sept. 16, senior agents met at the agency’s Atlanta field office to start an “after action review” to determine what had occurred and how it could be prevented in the future. But the agency did not immediately inform anyone at the White House, Mr. Earnest said, and Ms. Pierson did not bring up the incident during an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Obama on Sept. 24, which had been arranged to discuss the fence-jumping case.

“I think if there’s a serious breach of the president’s security, that we would anticipate that, at a minimum, that White House officials would be informed in a timely fashion,” Mr. Earnest said. Ms. Pierson also did not bring up the incident during several hours of testimony before the House panel on Tuesday. In an exchange with Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, Ms. Pierson said that she had briefed Mr. Obama about only one incident involving his safety in 2014 — the case involving Mr. Gonzalez. “So the only time you’ve briefed the president on perimeter security, the president’s personal security, the first family’s security, has been one time in 2014,” Mr. Chaffetz said.

“That’s correct,” she replied, just hours before news reports broke about the Atlanta incident. Ms. Pierson had not been Mr. Obama’s first choice to lead the Secret Service when he appointed her 18 months ago, according to several law enforcement officials. As the White House searched in 2013 for a new director to replace Mark Sullivan, who was retiring, White House officials first offered the job to David O’Connor, a longtime agency official who had recently taken a job as the head of global security for Bain Capital. But despite making the offer to Mr. O’Connor, who was known as “the dean of discipline” during his time at the Secret Service, the White House continued to examine his background. Officials uncovered an incident in the mid-1990s in which he had been accused — and ultimately cleared by the Secret Service — of using a racial slur. Mr. O’Connor, who decided against taking the job, declined to comment. Julia Pierson became the first female director of the U.S. Secret Service in March 2013, tapped to change the culture of an agency that was then marred by a Colombian prostitution scandal.

On Wednesday, the intruder who jumped the White House fence, Mr. Gonzalez, pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawfully entering a restricted government building while carrying a weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon in public and unlawfully possessing ammunition. The judge ruled that Mr. Gonzalez would remain in detention until another hearing on Oct. 21. Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, commended Ms. Pierson on Wednesday for stepping down, saying the move was in the best interest of the Secret Service and the president. But he said more change was necessary, including, possibly, more resignations. “I don’t want us, after she’s left, to say to ourselves that everything is resolved,” Mr. Cummings said. “Clearly there was a culture there that was not healthy.” In a brief interview with Del Quentin Wilber, a reporter for Bloomberg News, Ms. Pierson said that she had resigned because “Congress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency,” according to a Twitter message from Mr. Wilber shortly after the resignation was announced. Mr. Wilber also wrote that Ms. Pierson said: “I can be pretty stoic about all this, but not really. It’s painful to leave.”