Hillary Clinton watched as the tension in the Hanoi Convention Centre slowly mounted. First, the Vietnamese foreign minister rose to criticise China’s actions in the South China Sea. Then, one by one, other ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations raised similar concerns about Chinese bullying.
Sensing her moment, the US secretary of state asked to speak to the regional summit. For the first time, she announced that Washington had a “national interest” in freedom of navigation and international law in the South China Sea. The Chinese were irate. Yang Jiechi, the foreign minister, looked at Mrs Clinton and warned “outside powers” to stay out ofthe South China Sea disputes. Turning to the other countries, he fumed: “China is a big country. And you are all small countries. And that is a fact.”
Of the 956,733 milesMrs Clintontravelled and the 112 countries visited as secretary of state, the 2010 Hanoi meeting was in many ways the defining moment of her tenure. And it provides a valuable glimpse of the worldview that the Democratic nominee would bring to the White House if she winsthe November election.
For the Obama administration,the “pivot” to Asiais its signature foreign policy initiative. After 200 years of primarily looking east towards Europe, the US decided that its main priority is the Asia-Pacific.
By inserting the US directly into the arguments over the South China Sea, Mrs Clinton’s Hanoi statement was, in effect, the launch of the pivot, the moment the US declared to the region — and to Beijing — that the US would not sit aside as China tried to establish itself as the regional leader.
The phrase itself comes from an October 2011 article in Foreign Policy magazine by Mrs Clinton. In “America’s Pacific century”, she talked about the country being at a “pivot point”. While President Barack Obama will use an Asean summit in Laos starting today to cement the pivot as part of his own legacy, the reality is that it was very much a joint project between the president and the woman he hopes will succeed him.
For some US officials, including a few angling for senior positions in a future Clinton administration, the Hanoi meeting is evidence that she would be prepared to adopta tougher approach to China. In Beijing, the meeting reinforced the impression that she was the principle China hawk within the Obama administration.
From the outset of the first administration in January 2009, both Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were in swift agreement that Asia would be a priority. Her first major speech in office was at the Asia Society in New York the following month, when she spoke of “America’s desire for more rigorous and persistent commitment” to the region.
Yet there was also a desire within the administration not to start off on the wrong foot with China during the first year, as so many new presidents had done — especially given the crisis ripping across the global economy.
It was with this in mind that Mrs Clinton said ahead of her visit to Beijing, also in February 2009, that she would not make a big deal about human rights because “we pretty much know what they are going to say” — a remark that won her fierce criticism at home for appearing to let Beijing dictate terms.
By early 2010, the administration started to become less wary of offending Beijing. Mr Obama met the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, and announced a package of arms sales to Taiwan, while China was also lobbied to back a UN resolution on Iran. It was the South China Sea issue, however, that led the administration into a much more direct confrontation with China that year. US officials were already worried about increased Chinese naval activity in the area and the absence of any diplomatic process to resolve the various territorial disputes. They began to suspect that China was stepping up plans to try to exert control over the South China Sea.
In her memoirHard Choices, Mrs Clinton says she started to become concerned about the South China Sea at the May 2010 Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing. The Chinese started to refer to the South China Sea as a “core interest” alongside Taiwan and Tibet — in other words, a subject on which there could be no flexibility.
“They warned that China would not tolerate outside interference,” she wrote. “On the flight home from Beijing, I took stock with my team. I thought China had overplayed its hand.”
The administration decided to start calling out Beijing over its actions in the South China Sea. Jeff Bader, then Asia director at the National Security Council, and former assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell prepared the ground before the Hanoi meeting by briefing governments that harboured complaints about the Chinese. Over the past few years, the US has expandedsecurity co-operation with Vietnamand the Philippines, both of which are involved in territorial disputes with China, and backed a court case brought by the Philippines. An international tribunal ruled in July that many ofChina’s claims in the South China Sea were unlawful.
The one exception was over the case ofChen Guangcheng, the blind activist who took refuge in the US embassy in Beijing in 2012 and who — after several days of negotiations while Mrs Clinton was in Beijing for a summit — eventually received asylum in the US. According to senior officials, Mr Obama was highly critical of the state department’s decision to let Mr Chen into the US embassy.
Along with the Hanoi meeting, the stand-off over Mr Chen was another piece of evidence for those in Beijing who believe Mrs Clinton to be a relatively hardline voice about China, both on security issues and human rights. Indeed, Chinese suspicions about Mrs Clinton date back to the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, when she insisted that “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights” — remarks that were not broadcast in China.
As a result, many analysts in China would expect a prospective Clinton administration to be more willing to confront Beijing. “She has always been hard on China since her first visit in 1995,” says Chu Shulong, an international relations expert at Tsinghua University. “That’s her style.”
Shi Yinhong, another international relations expert at Renmin University, agrees: “Hillary will be tougher on China than Obama.”
From the start, the decision to push back against China in the South China Sea and the increasing US presence in the region have won strong, bipartisan support in Washington, where there are few disagreements with the basic ideas of the pivot. Within the administration, the only real debate has been about the pace of US naval operations in contested areas in the South China Sea.
However the pivot has not been without its critics. Hugh White, a former Australian defence official and an influential observer on Asia, believes that the US is not prepared for the huge risks and costs that would be required to actually shift China’s strategy.
“The pivot’s architects assumed that a merely symbolic reassertion of US power and resolve would be enough to make China back off,” he argues. “China’s assertive posture in the East and South China Sea today is strong evidence that they were wrong.”
Flawed deal?
So how would President Clinton act in Asia? For all her input in defining the Obama administration’s strategy to the region, during the election campaign she has turned against one of its central planks, the12-nation trade dealknown as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (China is not involved in TPP.)
Should Mrs Clinton win the election, the ideal situation for her would be for Congress to approve the trade deal before her inauguration. But if that does not happen, she would face the difficult choice of whether to reopen an agreement which she has described as central to American influence in the region, but which she now believes to be flawed in practice. At the Asean summit in Laos this week, Mr Obama will try to reassure Washington’s regional partners that the trade agreement still remains on track.
One former US official who worked closely with the Obama administration on China argues that Mrs Clinton would push more strongly on commercial issues and would be far less patient with the restrictions Beijing places on doing business in its own market.
“I don’t think she’ll be willing to park the competitiveness agenda as it relates to China to get, say, aglobal climate deal,” he adds. “President Obama wanted China’s help on the Iran deal, he wanted the climate deal and he was willing to shelve other more nettlesome issues in order to get them.”
The sharpest dilemma would be on the South China Sea. The approach Mrs Clinton started to outline in Hanoi in 2010 was to pressure China to back away from efforts to dominate the region, by demonstrating the regional and US opposition. Instead, Beijing has plunged ahead full speed, dramatically increasing over the past three years its efforts to build artificial islands that might one day serve as military bases.
Among Mrs Clinton’s Asia advisers, the approach being debated is a slightly stepped-up version of the Obama pivot — a series of steps aimed at forging a deeper network of allies and partners that can act as a deterrent to China and reinforce US ideas about trade and freedom of navigation.
The sorts of proposals being discussed include having another aircraft carrier permanently stationed in the region; expanding missile defence in South Korea; increased deployments to the island of Guam; and sending more planes and ships to the Philippines.
“They sound like small, incremental steps, but over time they will add up into a regional framework that can influence China’s rise,” says one former official advising the Clinton campaign. The Clinton team is still betting, in effect, that China has overplayed its hand. Additional reporting by Tom Mitchell
Mexico considers bill to revoke US treaties if Trump wins election
So you want to play hardball Mr Trump? Mexico is to consider revoking a series of bilateral treaties — including the 1848 agreement that transferred half its territory to the US — if the Republican candidate wins the presidency and rips up the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to a bill to be presented to Congress.
The initiative, to be proposed on Tuesday by Armando Ríos Piter, a leftwing senator, follows last week’s much-criticised meeting between Mexico’s President Enrique Peña and the US presidential contender Donald Trump, which inflamed public opinion and sparked a cabinet rift.
Mr Peña Nieto has faced a fierce backlash at home over what many saw as his red carpet treatment of Mr Trump, who has branded Mexicans “rapists” and wants to build a border wall that he insists Mexico will pay for.
“This is the first step towards establishing a public policy about how Mexico should react in the face of a threat,” Mr Ríos Piter told the Financial Times.
“This [bill] is simply to protect a successful 22-year-old relationship [Nafta] that has helped both nations. We want to defend that from a position that seeks to destroy it. We have to put it in black and white.”
The initiative is the idea of Agustín Barrios Gómez, a leftwing former legislator who now heads the Mexico Image Foundation, an organisation set up to improve foreign perceptions of the country.
It would make it illegal for Mexico to use official cash to fund the building of a border wall. If Mr Trump attempted to seize the $24bn in annual remittances from the US to Mexico to pay for it, the bill would empower Mexico to retaliate in kind by impounding the same sum, probably through a tax on flows heading in the other direction.
Furthermore, if Mr Trump made good on threats to scrap the 1994 Nafta free-trade deal — credited with creating one in three jobs in Mexico — it would call for a review all 75 bilateral treaties between the two countries to establish if they were in the national interests.
The only convincing response to precise threats is to stipulate by law what happens
That includes the 1848 Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement that ended the Mexican-American War, which transferred a huge swath of Mexican territory to the US, including what is now California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.
“We don’t want this,” Mr Barrios Gómez said of the proposal. “But ripping up Nafta and wrecking a carefully forged relationship that goes far beyond trade to security would be ‘mutually assured destruction’.”
The already-unpopular Mr Peña Nieto was excoriated in the Mexican media for appearing so accommodating to Mr Trump. Critics said he passed up a golden opportunity to tell the US billionaire to his face that Mexico would never pay for the wall.
$24bn
Amount of annual remittances from US to Mexico
"The president no longer represents Mexicans … The only convincing response to precise threats is to stipulate by law what happens” if Mr Trump wins the election and pushes ahead with his plans, Mr Barrios Gómez said.
The bill’s backers believe they already have support of leftwing lawmakers, and hope the criticism directed at Mr Peña Nieto will ensure broader cross-party support.
The Trump visit split Mr Pena Nieto’s cabinet, with Claudia Ruiz Massieu, his foreign minister, reported to have tried to resign.
Even Luis Videgaray, Mexico’s finance minister who championed the Trump visit as a way of reassuring financial markets, later told a television show that legislation “isn’t a bad idea … it could be a good idea to take this type of precautions”.
Leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies have been warned that they must “civilise capitalism” as they seek to revive economic growth and address growing public scepticism about the benefits of free trade and globalisation.
This year’s G20 leaders summit, which concluded on Monday in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, was held in the wake of British voters’ decision to leave the EU and the rise of populist political candidates on both sides of the Atlantic.
Officials present during closed-door sessions said US president Barack Obama, UK prime minister Theresa May and her Australian and Canadian counterparts emphasised the need to placate public discontent. According to the officials, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, a former Goldman Sachs banker, warned his peers of the need to “civilise capitalism”.
“Growth has been too low for too long for too few,” Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said at the conclusion of the summit. “There was also a determination around the room to better identify the benefits of trade in order to respond to the populist backlash against globalisation.”
One G20 official said there was a high “degree of awareness” among heads of government that globalisation could be thrown into reverse. “It has taken the rise of populists across the world for them to realise this,” he said. “If we do not address the issue of fairness, [it] could endanger the global economy.”
Another person involved in the discussions said that “it was a summit where leaders have been talking a lot more about people and less about economics”.
Chinese president Xi Jinping helped set the tone of this year’s G20 meeting in a weekend address to business executives. “Development is for the people, it should be pursued by the people and its outcomes should be shared by the people,” Mr Xi said.
“This is not just a moral responsibility of the international community,” he added. “It also helps unleash immeasurable effective demand.”
The global economy is projected to expand just 3 per cent this year as its traditional engines of trade and investment sputter. G20 officials involved in drafting the event’s final communiqué said it would call for the use of “all available tools” to boost global growth.
Before the two-day meeting, the US government argued that a “public bandwagon” was growing to ditch austerity in favour of fiscal policy support.
“Maybe the Germans are not absolutely cheering for it but there is a growing awareness that ‘fiscal space’ has to be used to a much greater extent,” agreed Ángel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
China’s economy, the world’s second largest, is growing at its slowest rate in a quarter century. Chinese officials say they have room to boost fiscal spending given relatively low public sector indebtedness, but are putting more emphasis on structural “supply side reforms”.
“Following the old road of relying purely on fiscal and monetary policy leads to a dead end,” Mr Xi said on Monday, adding that his government remained committed to cut domestic steel capacity by up to 150m tonnes by 2020 while eliminating a billion tonnes of coal production.
Print books remain more popular among Americans than e-books: survey
WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Despite an easy access to reading material available through a variety of digitally connected devices, print books remain much more popular than books in digital formats among Americans, a new Pew survey showed.
According to the survey released earlier this month, 73 percent of Americans read a book in the last 12 months, and a traditional print book is more likely to be picked than a digital product.
Some 65 percent of Americans read a print book in the last year, more than double the share that read en e-book, said the survey.
As to the consumption of e-book, the survey found that instead of using an e-reader, Americans increasingly turn to multipurpose devices such as a smartphone and tablet computer.
In total, 28 percent of Americans read books in both print and digital formats, while nearly four in 10 said they read print books exclusively.
G20 to revitalize international trade, investment: Xi
HANGZHOU, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- The G20 members will support multilateral trading system, oppose protectionism, unlock global trade cooperation potential, and reverse the decline of trade growth, President Xi Jinping said here on Monday.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the 11th G20 summit, Xi said, with the determination to revitalize global trade and investment as key engines of growth, the G20 members have agreed to strengthen the construction of G20 trade and investment mechanism.
A G20 strategy for global trade growth was made to "promote the inclusive and coordinated development of global value chains, support the multilateral trading system, and reject protectionism, ... to unlock the potential of global trade cooperation, and reverse the decline of global trade growth," said the president.
G20 Guiding Principles for Global Investment Policymaking, which lays out the first global framework of multilateral rules governing international investment, will have great significance in promoting the transition of G20 from a crisis response to a long-term governance mechanism, he said.
The 11th summit of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies concluded on Monday, reaching consensus on a wide range of important topics.
A communique was adopted, clarifying the development direction, targets, measures of the G20 cooperation, while Hangzhou Consensus was reached on facilitating world economic growth through long-term, comprehensive, open, innovative and inclusive measures, said Xi.
"We are determined to break a new path for growth to inject new vitality into the world economy," Xi said.
Canada’s membership pledge lends further credence to China-initiated AIIB
Eight months after the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) joined the family of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), it has already started lending and is working on expanding its membership. The AIIB has impressed the global market with its innovative efforts to engage in investing in infrastructure projects. Experts have noted that the AIIB's advantage lies in its efficient operations and China's understanding of how to cater to the needs of developing countries. Still, its success will hinge on whether it can make a profit on its loans.
Canadian Minister of Finance Bill Morneau (left) adjusts the microphone as he sits with the President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Jin Liqun during a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday. Photo: IC
The Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) wowed the world last week when a US ally, Canada, announced on Wednesday that it would join the new international bank.
"Succeeding in the global economy of tomorrow will require a strategic partnership and openness to the world, and that's why we're forging new ties with international partners," Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in a statement on the Canadian government's website.
AIIB President Jin Liqun welcomed Canada's decision, saying that the timing ahead of G20summit is a vote of confidence in the new bank, according to a CCTV report on Saturday.
Canada is one of dozens of countries that have expressed interest in joining the China-initiated multinational financial institution.
The AIIB has 57 founding member countries, the majority of which are located in Asia and Western Europe, including China, South Korea, the UK, Germany and France.
The bank started accepting applications for new members this year. The application window will remain open until the end of September.
Jin said more than 20 countries have filed applications, and there has been a surge in applicants from outside of Asia, including major powers in Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America, according to the report.
If the AIIB was to approve these applications, its roster would expand to more than 80 countries, exceeding the membership of the Japan- and US-led Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has 67 members.
Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the framework for the AIIB two years ago, and the bank began operating in January, with $100 billion committed capital to invest in infrastructure projects across Asia.
China contributed $29.78 billion of the bank's starting capital and is the largest shareholder, with 26.06 percent of the voting rights.
The AIIB held the first annual meeting of its 57 founding shareholders on June 25. On that day, the bank approved its first batch of loans, worth $509 million, which went to fund four projects, including construction of a highway in Pakistan and upgrading a part of the power grid in Bangladesh.
The bank also plans to invest $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion in infrastructure construction this year, and the amount is expected to increase to $2.6 billion to $3 billion in 2017, the report said.
An innovative idea
Thomas Maier, the managing director for infrastructure at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said during the annual meeting that he was impressed by the AIIB's willingness to take risks, especially in terms of striding into the private sector.
Currently, the AIIB's financing model draws on sovereign guaranteed loans, Henry Bell, the AIIB's communication officer, told the Global Times on Thursday.
However, the bank has vowed to engage with the private sector to finance infrastructure projects in Asia over the next few years because private companies are "normally cost-effective and have much less bureaucracy," Jin said at a press briefing in late June.
"Private companies usually lack the incentive to participate in infrastructure projects because some projects are risky and require a long period before they can turn a profit," said Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute at Wuhan University of Science and Technology.
AIIB's involvement will ease the private sector's concerns about working with local governments, Dong told the Global Times on Thursday.
Experts suggested that AIIB ought to draw on lessons from the financing models of other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), such as the European Investment Bank, which offers a system of guarantees to allow public institutions to share the risks.
AIIB advantages
As a newcomer to the MDBs family, the AIIB aspires to be lean, transparent and efficient, which should be its strength, experts noted.
"Getting a loan from existing MDBs, such as the World Bank, borrowers typically need to go through a lengthy process," said Liu Xiaoxue, an associate research fellow at the National Institute of International Strategy under Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"Loan approval comes with a number of conditions that the borrowing countries are required to fulfill in the following years," Liu told the Global Times on Thursday, noting that some of the conditions, like cutting public spending in a bid to leverage government debt, actually undermine the well-being of the people in those countries.
In contrast, it took about half a year for the AIIB to approve its first batch of loans, which are free of conditions, adding to the evidence that the institution is efficient and flexible, Liu said.
The AIIB should not be seen as a replacement for the MDBs, but as a supplement, because Asian countries have long suffered from a lack of basic infrastructure, which has hindered the region's economic development, experts said.
According to ADB data, Asia will require $8 trillion in investment by 2020 to plug its infrastructure deficit. That amount far exceeded the funding capabilities of existing multinational financial institutions like the ADB.
The AIIB also benefits from a greater understanding of the "successful experience and lessons of the developing world's years of nation building," China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said at the annual meeting in late June.
Profit prospects
Despite its advantages, the new bank is just eight months old. One critical issue for the bank will be how to make a profit, experts warned.
"Infrastructure projects usually invoke a pool of capital and sometimes take years to see a profit," Liu said.
"So, the AIIB's biggest challenge will be to figure out how to maintain sustainable development through infrastructure construction."
Experts highlighted the importance of a good track record of performance in reducing the AIIB's financing cost.
Jin was optimistic about the AIIB's future. He forecast that the bank's investments in infrastructure projects would yield returns ranging from 6 percent to 10 percent, domestic news portal sohu.com reported.
"Unlike subsidized lending, which was issued by the World Bank with a relatively lower interest rate," Bell said. "AIIB will ultimately make a profit from the loans, as they are based on the market interest rate." Newspaper headline: Credit where credit’s due
Durante una rueda de prensa el presidente ruso Vladímir Putin abarca los aspectos y temas principales de la Cumbre G-20, que se celebra en Hangzhou, China.
El presidente de Rusia, Vladímir Putin, ha señalado que en la Cumbre del G-20, que ha tenido lugar del 4 al 5 de septiembre en la ciudad china de Hangzhou, "se ha llevado a cabo un trabajo serio".
Metas económicas: un desarrollo innovador
Entre los temas que los políticos han tratado se encuentran las fuentes de crecimiento económico a largo plazo. El mandatario ruso destacó la importancia del desarrollo de mecanismos innovadores y del "intercambio de la información y cooperación en este ámbito". "Comenzamos la discusión sobre la creación de las reglas en el sector de inversiones", ha indicado Putin, señalando que es necesario garantizar los principios y objetivos de desarrollo.
El presidente ruso también ha indicado la importancia de resolver ciertos asuntos económicos en las relaciones bilaterales con Japón y de fomentar condiciones para resolver aspectos políticos. Putin ha asegurado que en las negociaciones con los socios japoneses Rusia no irá "a callejones sin salida" y que ambas partes intentarán encontrar una solución conjunta.
La disputa territorial por las islas Kuriles que mantienen Rusia y Japón, surgió como resultado de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Putin ha precisado que según el acuerdo firmado por la URSS y Japón, "dos islas del sur pasan a la parte japonesa, pero no se habla de las condiciones ni de soberanía". Como "Japón se negó a cumplir con el acuerdo", este quedó congelado.
La 'reanimación' de las relaciones con Turquía
Sputnik
Pese a que la 'reanimación' de las relaciones bilaterales con Turquía no va "tan rápido como querrían los socios turcos", ya se ha creado una base para restablecer las relaciones a gran escala. "Vemos el deseo del Gobierno turco de restablecer las relaciones", ha asegurado Putin, señalando que "el pueblo turco da la bienvenida" a este paso.
La renovación de las relaciones turco-rusas se debe en gran medida al arresto del piloto que realizó un ataque contra el avión ruso Su-24 y la persona que disparó contra los pilotos rusos que se catapultaron de la aeronave. Por el momento, Rusia espera los resultados de la investigación oficial de lo sucedido.
La cuestión siria y otros asuntos por tratar con EE.UU.
Sputnik/Kremlin/Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters
En el marco de la Cumbre G-20 Putin ha participado de una serie de reuniones con líderes de diferentes países. Durante la reunión con el presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama, que duró más de una hora, los líderes mantuvieron una conversación personal, discutieron temas referentes a los conflictos en Siria y Ucrania, y acordaron que ambos países continuarán trabajando en conjunto para buscar posibles soluciones y avanzar en estos temas.
Putin estima que ha conseguido una comprensión mutua con su homólogo estadounidense respecto a los problemas que afrontan ambos países. "Quedan por terminar ciertos momentos de carácter técnico, si [el secretario de Estado de EE.UU.] Kerry y [el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores ruso] Lavrov consiguen hacerlo, daremos un paso adelante respecto a la solución de la situación en Siria". El mandatario ruso sostiene que es posible llegar "en los próximos días" a los acuerdos sobre Siria, que mejorarán e intensificarán la lucha conjunta contra los grupos terroristas.
El presidente ruso ha señalado que Estados Unidos es uno de los principales socios de Rusia en cuestiones de seguridad y otros aspectos y que Moscú está abierta a los contactos en este ámbito. No obstante, también ha indicado que el intercambio comercial está a niveles mínimos.
"Los precios del petróleo tienen que ser justos"
Mientras que los precios del crudo actuales convienen a Rusia, "podrían ser más altos", ha afirmado Putin. "El precio tiene que ser justo. Podría ser un poco más alto", ha declarado.
Comentando las relaciones con Arabia Saudita, el presidente de Rusia ha indicado su carácter amistoso y ha destacado la necesidad de cooperación mutua en el mercado petrolero.
Rusia apoya a China en la disputa territorial en el mar de la China Meridional
Reuters
Moscú no interviene en la disputa territorial sobre las islas en el mar de la China Meridional, pero apoya la postura de China que, por su parte, rechaza las decisiones del tribunal de La Haya.
Putin también ha subrayado la importancia de China como socio desde el punto de vista del intercambio comercial y ha indicado que ambos países tienen importantes proyectos conjuntos en la esfera de la construcción de aviones y la colaboración en el espacio, entre otros.
Trump Says Federal Reserve Propped up Obama’s ‘False Economy’ With Cheap Money
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on the Federal Reserve debate on hiking interest rates before Election Day blasting the Central Bank for masking the failures of President Obama’s "false economy" which he argues has not truly recovered since the 2008 crash.
"They’re keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down," Trump told reporters when asked whether the Federal Reserve should increase interest rates. "We have a very false economy."
"At some point the rates are going to have to change," Trump explained while campaigning in Ohio on Monday. "The only thing that is strong is the artificial stock market."
A number of leading economists agree with the bombastic billionaire reality television star turned political sensation arguing that the Central Bank has exceeded its mandate in artificially propping up the US economy by maintaining historically low interest rates for the entirety of President Obama’s term.
Economists claim that low interest rates, which leads to artificially low borrowing costs, has the effect of stripping the economy of its risk management mechanism as businesses are able to fill financial shortfalls simply by borrowing more money at extraordinarily low interest rates. Others wonder if the flow of cheap money maintained by the Fed’s bond buying program – although some erroneously liken this to the Central Bank printing more money – also contributes to economic inequality.
These concerns seem to match the realities of the American economy as the stock market surges and the wealthiest one percent report ever increasing incomes, but wages have remained stagnant or have fallen for most working Americans while the workforce participation rate continues to lag well behind pre-recession levels as many workers have just given up.
Donald Trump blasted Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen calling her tenure as the head of the Central Bank "highly political" and said that while he believed that an interest rate hike is necessary to restore balance to the American economy and prevent future calamity in the financial markets, he did not expect that the Federal Reserve would raise rates in September due to "political reasons."
Obama Crashes G20 by Warning Beijing of ‘Consequences’ in the South China Sea
On Monday, President Barack Obama leveled a severe warning against what he views as China’s continued misbehavior in the South China Sea saying that there will be "consequences" if Beijing refuses to back down from its increasingly aggressive behavior that he says is worrying its neighbors.
"Part of what I’ve tried to communicate to President Xi (Jinping) is that the United States arrives at its power, in part, by restraining itself," said Obama in a CNN interview. "You know, when we bind ourselves to a bunch of international norms and rules, it’s not because we have to, it’s because we recognize that, over the long-term, building a strong international order is in our interest. And, I think, over the long-term, it will be in China’s interests, as well."
The statements fell flat given President Obama’s plainly stated goal of minimizing China’s regional influence as part of his "Asian pivot" as well as in light of recent diplomatic friction with a key American ally, the Philippines, whose President accused the United States of treating it as a colony on Monday before erupting in an obscenity laden tirade against the US President. Obama announced that he refused to meet his Filipino counterpart on Monday as a result.
The friction that the United States faces with the Philippines is critical to the dispute over the South China Sea as the island nation was urged by the Obama administration to seek unilateral arbitration before The Hague international tribunal setting into motion the diminution of China’s longstanding claim in the region.
The Hague ruled that Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea was invalid, a ruling that China has staunchly protested and vowed not to comply with on the basis of substantive and procedural issues.
Over 40% of the world’s shipborne trade transits through the contested South China Sea each day and the waters contain some of the world’s largest offshore oil and natural gas discoveries. Additionally, artificial islands constructed in the waters serve a critical purpose for China of allowing the regime to expand its military reach in the Pacific Ocean. Given the heavy economic, political and national security implications of the ruling, it seems unlikely that China would back away from its long-held claim.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration accuses China of intentionally acting in contravention to international law and seeking to subvert regional stability as Beijing employs an increasingly aggressive posture in Pacific Ocean with a state newspaper referring to Australia as an "ideal target to strike" and with the regime threatening war with Japan if it participates in freedom of navigation exercises with the United States in the South China Sea.
"Where we see them violating international rules and norms, as we have seen in some cases in the South China Sea or in some of their behavior when it comes to economic policy, we’ve been very firm. And we’ve indicated to them that there will be consequences," said President Obama.
The statements by the US President fly in the face of Beijing’s request that the dispute over the South China Sea be avoided for the sake of maintaining a sense of diplomacy at the economic summit.
