US President Barack Obama took a walk alone on the Great Wall yesterday, wrapping up a visit to China with a visit to the ancient fortifications that symbolize the country’s history and separateness.
“It’s magical. It reminds you of the sweep of history,” Obama said after breaking away from his tour guides to walk alone along the parapets, hands jammed into his pockets against the cold and wind.
“It gives you a good perspective on a lot of the day-to-day things. They don’t amount to much in the scope of history,” he said.
PHOTO: AFP
Ties between the US and China have grown so much since that the two economies are now deeply intertwined, while the US must accommodate China’s growing influence on the world stage.
The Obama trip did not yield immediate breakthroughs on the many issues the two giant economies face, foremost among them currency and protectionism. But it did keep the lines of dialogue open and was accompanied by professions of friendship.
“Our time here on Earth is not that long and we better make the best of it,” Obama said at the Wall, before heading off to South Korea, the final leg of his Asia trip.
Earlier, observers in the US and China said that a joint statement by the US and Chinese presidents on climate change was encouraging as pressure builds in the last few weeks before a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen, but said the language left a lot unsaid.
The world’s two largest polluters talked on Tuesday of a joint desire to tackle climate change, but failed to publicly address the root problems that could unravel a deal at the Dec. 7 to Dec. 18 conference — mainly, how much each country can contribute to emissions cuts and how the world will pay for it.
The joint statement by Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has positive language about aiming for a comprehensive deal, “but it leaves a lot of room for different interpretations, ranging from a real ambitious climate rescue deal to another meaningless declaration,” said Ailun Yang, climate campaign manager for Greenpeace China. “The real test is still at Copenhagen.”
Three weeks remain before the global conference that aims for a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.
The Copenhagen agreement would require developing countries such as China to curb emissions growth as well.
In a joint statement, Obama and Hu said Copenhagen should produce a comprehensive agreement that “include[s] emission reduction targets of developed countries and nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries.”
Hu said countries would do their part “consistent with our respective capabilities,” a reference to the now widely accepted view that developing nations like China should be required only to set goals for curbing emissions, not accept absolute targets.
Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation, a charity group that promotes UN causes, praised the US-China joint statement for saying a deal at Copenhagen should include emission reduction targets by developed countries, but he stressed the urgency of finding a final agreement.
“Reaching a deal in Copenhagen will be hard enough; leaving all the negotiations to the last minute could make it unachievable,” he said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Already, US officials acknowledge that the Copenhagen talks were not expected to produce a final legal agreement. White House aides said on Sunday that a fully binding legal agreement would be put off until a meeting in Mexico City in December next year.
But the meeting between Obama and Hu could give important momentum to the last few weeks of negotiations before Copenhagen, observers said.
“It is important to put things in perspective and realize just how far we’ve come in one year, particularly that both the US and China have elevated cooperation on climate change to the very highest levels of government,” Barbara Finamore, China program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement yesterday.
The US still has not committed to figures for its own emissions reductions or financing, with negotiators waiting until Congress completes domestic climate legislation.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS