Tag: President Xi

Biden holds first call as president with China’s Xi Jinping

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President Biden on Wednesday evening held his first call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since taking office, raising thorny issues including human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The big picture: Ahead of the call, senior administration officials offered reporters the most detailed portrait to date of Biden’s policies toward China, and how they will build on — and diverge from — Donald Trump’s approach.

Driving the news: “President Biden underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan,” according to a White House readout of the call. Continue reading.

China plans sweeping national security law for Hong Kong

Axios logoChina plans to implement a sweeping national security law for Hong Kong that could dramatically constrain Hong Kong’s autonomy and provoke fierce backlash from pro-democracy activists.

Why it matters: Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s independent legal system prompted massive protests last year that have resumed on a smaller scale as social-distancing measures lift.

  • The current proposal appears to be far-reaching, banning sedition, treason and secession, which Beijing tends to define very broadly, per the BBC.
  • The proposal would amend the Basic Law, which has governed relations with the mainland since Hong Kong was handed back to China from the U.K. in 1997. Continue reading.

Scoop: Xi accepts, while Trump rejects, invite to address WHO

Axios logoPresident Trump declined an invitation to address a virtual gathering of the World Health Organization, which proceeded today with addresses from several world leaders but only a blistering rebuke from the U.S.

The big picture: A source familiar with Trump’s thinking said he has no interest in doing anything with the WHO right now. Trump has excoriated the WHO, saying it’s kowtowing to China, and he’s frozen U.S. funding for the global health agency.

Behind the scenes: The WHO extended an invitation earlier this month for Trump to speak at Monday’s virtual gathering of the World Health Assembly, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Continue reading.

‘Celebrating a country that shoots protesters’: Trump scorched for congratulating China on adoption of communism

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has repeatedly embarrassed the United States, upended decades of foreign policy, and wholly embraced the core aspects of our enemies. He just did it again.

In a Tuesday morning tweet Trump congratulated China’s President Xi Jinping “and the Chinese people on the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China!”

The People’s Republic of China is governed by the Communist Party of China. Trump just congratulated its president for 70 years of communism.

View the complete October 1 article by David Badash from The New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

Trump ready for tariff truce with China

The U.S. and China have tentatively agreed to another truce in their trade war in order to resume talks aimed at resolving the dispute, sources familiar with the situation said.

Details of the agreement are being laid out in press releases in advance of the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump at the Group of 20 Leaders Summit in Osaka, Japan, this weekend, three sources — one in Beijing and two others in Washington — said.

Such an agreement would avert the next round of tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports, which would extend punitive tariffs to virtually all of the country’s shipments to the U.S. The Trump administration has threatened to slap duties of up to 25 percent on the remaining untaxed Chinese goods if this weekend’s talks go poorly.

View the complete June 26 article by Doug Palmer, Wendy Wu, Mark Magnier and Owen Churchill from The South China Morning Post here.

Trump jets to Japan to wing it at G-20 summit as Iran tensions build

Official unable to lay out agenda for high-stakes meetings with Xi, Putin and MBS

After a week of brinksmanship and backing down, President Donald Trump  heads to a G-20 summit in Japan on Wednesday for talks with other world leaders amid a volatile confrontation with Iran and stalled trade talks with China.

Senior administration officials made clear this week that Trump, who admits his negotiating style is based on gut feelings and big bets, will largely wing it at the meeting. Officials declined to describe any set agenda for the president’s talks with world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putinand South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

The Xi and Moon meetings will focus on trade and North Korea’s nuclear arms program. But on both matters, a senior administration official contended, “I don’t think the president is feeling any pressure on either of those accounts.”

View the complete June 25 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Trump Delayed Pence’s Tiananmen Square Speech in Hopes of Landing Xi Meeting

Vice President Mike Pence was set to deliver a speech criticizing China’s human rights record on June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre — until Donald Trump stepped in.

The president delayed the speech to avoid upsetting Beijing ahead of a potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 meeting in Japan at the end of this month, according to several people familiar with the matter. Trump also put off U.S. sanctions on Chinese surveillance companies that Pence planned to preview in his remarks.

The speech was tentatively rescheduled for June 24, just days before the Osaka summit. But with Beijing signaling that Xi might not agree to a meeting, there is now debate within the administration about when Pence should deliver the speech and how hard he should be on the Chinese.

View the complete June 14 article by Jenny Leonard and Jennifer Jacobs on the Bloomberg News website here.

Huawei executive wanted by U.S. faces fraud charges related to Iran sanctions, could face 30 years in prison

A senior Chinese tech executive faces fraud charges in the United States related to business dealings with Iran, a Canadian prosecutor said Friday, offering the first details of a case that has pummeled financial markets and raised questions about a current trade truce between Beijing and Washington.

Before a packed courtroom in Vancouver, prosecutor John Gibb-Carsley argued that Meng Wanzhou committed fraud in 2013 by telling financial institutions that China’s Huawei had no connection to a Hong Kong-based company, Skycom, which was reportedly selling U.S. goods to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Meng’s lawyer denied the charge.

News this week of her arrest roiled markets already shaken by months of conflict between the world’s two largest economies. The fear is that the arrest of a top Chinese executive could impact a trade war truce struck last week by President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

View the complete December 7 article by Emily Rauhala on The Washington Post website here.