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Page added on November 12, 2014
US, China sign symbolic emissions plan
The United States and China announced a largely symbolic plan on Wednesday to implement new limits on carbon emissions, the highlight of a summit between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in which both leaders played down suggestions of differences and rivalry.
U.S. officials said the commitments by the world’s two biggest carbon polluters came after months of backroom negotiations and would set the tone for a global climate control pact, but experts said the limits did not break significant new ground.
The two largest economies in the world have strong commercial ties but have been at odds over everything from China’s pursuit of territorial claims in East and Southeast Asia to cyberspying, trade and human rights.
Obama, meeting Xi in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People for their first formal talks in more than a year after a dinner the previous night that went two hours longer than scheduled, said he welcomes a China that is peaceful, prosperous and stable.
“In other words, a strong, cooperative relationship with China is at the heart of our pivot to Asia,” Obama said, shrugging off criticism that the United States sought to counter China’s rise in the region.
“If the United States is going to continue to lead the world in addressing global challenges, then we have to have the second largest economy and the most populous nation on Earth as our partner,” Obama said, adding that he was encouraged by Xi’s “willingness to engage constructively”.
Xi called for expanding cooperation despite differences.
“The Pacific Ocean is broad enough to accommodate the development of both China and the United States and our two countries should work together to contribute to security in Asia,” he said.
“The two sides should respect the other’s core interests and major concerns, and persist in managing differences in a constructive fashion.”
Despite U.S. officials projecting low expectations for any major outcomes in the run-up to the trip, the two sides managed to roll out a series of modest to fairly significant achievements over the course of the visit, on visas, trade, climate and military-to-military ties.
The outcomes of the visit were “more than expected”, with Xi keen to use the opportunity to show he wants improved ties despite Obama being on his way out in two years, said Sun Zhe, head of the Center for U.S.-China Relations at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University.
“The bilateral relationship is mature enough that we understand even if we don’t have political trust for another five to 10 years, we need to live and work together. That’s a new way of thinking by Chinese leaders,” Sun said.
In another centerpiece of the visit, the White House announced on Tuesday that the two countries made a breakthrough on eliminating duties on information technology products, a move cheered by U.S. software and technology trade groups that could pave the way for a major deal at the World Trade Organization.
DOWNPLAYED TRADE ROWS
Xi downplayed controversy over competing visions for free trade in the Asia-Pacific which had been an undercurrent at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum earlier in the week.
Washington is working on a 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal which excludes China and is widely seen as the economic backbone of Obama’s pivot.
But Beijing had used APEC to push forward a study on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), a framework which some had seen as a counter to the TPP.
“I don’t see any of the regional free trade agreements as targeting China. China is committed to open regionalism and we believe the various regional cooperation initiatives should positively interact with each other. That is currently the case,” Xi said.
Despite the bonhomie displayed by both leaders during their public interactions, especially at the APEC summit, sticking points in relations were also on display, from protests in Hong Kong to media freedom.
At their last major talks in California in the summer of 2013, the two countries agreed to few tangibles aside from a pledge to work together to try to resolve disputes over cyber security, an area where relations subsequently worsened.
In May, the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking into American companies to steal trade secrets. China showed its anger over the allegations by shutting down a bilateral working group on cyber security.
Washington had flagged the cyber issue ahead of the meeting as a key area of concern, but Obama made no mention of it in his public comments. The South China Sea territorial dispute between China and Southeast Asian nations was also only briefly referred to by Obama.
Still, Obama and Xi sparred over Hong Kong, which has been rocked by sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in recent weeks.
Obama told Xi that the United States would encourage elections in the Chinese territory that are free and fair and reflect the will of people, drawing a riposte from Xi that what happens in Hong Kong is an internal matter for China.
19 Comments on "US, China sign symbolic emissions plan"
Shaved Monkey on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 5:05 am
Doubt the Republicans will be as eager to reduce emissions if they win the next election.
You know the Chinese wont be changing government or policy direction so they probably will reach theres.
Great timing though with Australia hosting the G20 and our climate change denying government trying to keep the environment of the agenda this puts it back on.
Davy on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 6:46 am
Shave, what does it matter? The amount of emission reductions needed are the equivalent of the reduction of all other economic activity besides agriculture. The possible coming collapse will be the only effective mitigation effort. Don’t get me wrong any reduction is good just let’s not get are hopes up. Industrial man is the problem and there is no way to fix that. Substitution, knowledge, technology, innovation, efficiency and management are all what got us to this point. They are a dead end.
JuanP on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 9:16 am
“Obama, meeting Xi in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People for their first formal talks in more than a year after…”
Just as a reference, Putin and Xi have met 13 times in the last year.
JuanP on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 9:30 am
““If the United States is going to continue to lead the world in addressing global challenges, then we have to have the second largest economy and the most populous nation on Earth as our partner,” Obama said,”
Obviously Obama didn’t get the memo on the fact that the USA does NOT lead the world, it never did and never will. This is an American myth that noone but Americans believe. America leads only a bunch of decrepit Western former imperial nations in political, economic, and social decline and those in fear of the US military.
He apparently also missed the memo on China’s economy becoming the largest in the world on a GDP PPP basis.
To make this statement in Beijing is offensive, ignorant, arrogant, and/or stupid. Obama is a conniving liar and a repugnant human being. He is a two faced coward. What a disgrace of a president he is.
JuanP on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 9:34 am
““In other words, a strong, cooperative relationship with China is at the heart of our pivot to Asia,” Obama said”
In other words, we will use all the means within our power to force China to cooperate with the USA unconditionally, this is at the heart of our pivot to Asia, Juan says.
JuanP on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 9:43 am
The complete lack of a rational, sensible, coherent US foreign policy is extremely worrying.
This meeting’s presidential comments are clear proof of how bad things are between the USA and China at the moment. I don’t expect them to improve, the negative trend is very clear and has been for many years.
The USA will not go down without a fight.
Perk Earl on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 10:07 am
“Doubt the Republicans will be as eager to reduce emissions if they win the next election.”
I whole heartedly agree, shaved monkey. By way of the close election between Bush & Gore, in which the Supreme Court substituted themselves in place of a democratic vote, The R’s, in spite of Gore abiding by the Supreme Court’s decision without a fuss because supposedly the country was so weak it would have imploded if there was any delay in immeditely anointing a prez (even though the swearing in doesn’t take place until January), it came to be that the R’s were so enraged with hatred for Gore that anything attached to him has become fodder for digging in their heels and that includes completely, absolutely rejecting global warming one billion percent.
I am certain the house and senate R’s are at this moment fuming, trying the best they can not to go into a ballistic rage over Obama’s agreement with China. Biding their time until Jeb can take the reins and climate change can be shelved for at least 4 maybe 8 more years, or economic collapse, whichever comes first.
ghung on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 10:22 am
“In other words, a strong, cooperative relationship with China is at the heart of our pivot to Asia,” Obama said”
I’ll place my bet that it’s as much about getting China on board with the Trans-Pacific Partnership as anything, or at least to put pressure on countries (such as Australia) regarding their stance on intellectual property rights. Good luck getting China to honor international intellectual property rights, especially since they’ve only “expressed interest” in joining the TPP.
This beasty is one area where Obama and the Republicans see eye-to-eye, at least, in part. Now that Democrat opposition has been neutralised, this is Obama’s big chance to lay one more giant turd on the middle class. It’s no wonder that steps have been taken to keep these negotiations and stipulations secret. Exactly a year ago “On November 13, 2013, a complete draft of the treaty’s Intellectual Property Rights chapter was published by WikiLeaks;” created something of a shit-storm around the negotiating process.
I’m convinced that Obama’s ultimate goal is to shore up globalization and the US Dollar hegemony, in light of obvious threats. Of course, it isn’t within a President’s range of options to admit that we’re basically being handed our hat and shown the door in terms of dominating world economic affairs. “Non-negotiable” keeps coming to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
Plantagenet on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 10:58 am
More smoke and mirrors from Obama. The piece of paper he signed is worthless—there are no binding commitments, no penalties for not meeting goals, and no treaty between China and the US. Its simply a public relations exercise for obama and xi.
Davy on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 12:14 pm
Juan, I agree Obama is out of touch. In fact if he were a real man he would return his Nobel Peace prize. He would resign for lying straight face to the American people over NSA spying.
I find mentions of China and the US economies as one or the other bigger or smaller as irrelevant. They are different economies. The standard measurements do not adequately measure either country. For example with China being a final assembly country for exports there are allot of economic credit given to China that was produced elsewhere.
Both China and the US have hollow areas of their economies. I would say China is the worst at hiding bad debt which inflates GDP and growth. Bad debt is actually a double negative because you have the bad debt and you have the money spent based on erroneous profits further deepening the bad debt effects. China’s shadow banking system is so rehypothecated as to make much of China’s collateral supporting all the shadow banking credit as meaningless. China has a huge mal investment problem. China is an export economy that is looking at a global export decline. China has Japan next door with a currency that is being gutted which will destabilize the Chinese yuan.
We know all the US smoke and mirrors because this site specializes in picking apart the US so there is no need to mention them. This leaves us to wonder which economy is bigger and does it really matter in the end. Both are sinking into a depression. We should ask which country can survive a downturn intact. I feel China is in the worst position with the huge population that has intensively urbanized in recent years. Its ecosystem and productive farm land are being destroyed. Its water resources so polluted making some not even fit for agriculture. The biggest obstacle for China is food insecurity that will propagate as liquid fuel supplies diminish.
I find all the admiration of both China and Russia misplaced. It is as if they are being pumped up because they represent a nemesis to the hated US. It does not matter about reality what matter is China and Russia in particular are challengers. I also get tired of all the talk in isolation about the end of the petrodollar and the reserve currency status of the dollar as if the rest of the global economy will decouple and is isolated from any of the consequences. This unreality is absurd. Those of you rejoicing in the end of the US in multiple ways are just talking about your own end. The global economy will go down together. The way this will happen is beyond a forecast and predictions but the direction is clear.
We have little room for anti-American propaganda because its purpose is division and blame. What we need now is plan B’s and life boats. The blame game is wasted time. The top’s game will unravel and all participants will unravel together. It is possible this unravel could be gentle and over time allowing countries or regional blocks to coalesce into power centers that could then have comparative advantage over others. The likely outcome on the other hand is a generalized collapse of all involved because time and money to transition into regional powers away from the codependence of globalism is gone. We are finished as a global system. The descent paradigm is in motion with no way to stop it
Northwest Resident on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 12:57 pm
Makati1 — I found an article for you to wholeheartedly agree with and enthusiastically endorse. And you know what, I might even join in this time. Except for one thing — the joke is China and the rest of the world, because little do they realize that as America sinks, so sinks the rest of the world. Agree?
“Chinese leader Xi Jinping knows something Barack Obama doesn’t: America is finished. The U.S. economy is an ocean liner holed below the waterline. In the stateroom, the band plays on – but, on the bridge, the outcome is clear.
With the arguable exception of the late-era Soviet Union, America is sinking faster than any Great Power in history.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/11/12/obama-in-china-taking-candy-from-a-baby/?partner=yahootix
ghung on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 3:33 pm
Thanks, NR. That’s a pretty spot-on article. I saw a list of the various means of production the US has moved to China, Japan and Korea, along with the technology, and it’s astounding. We couldn’t repatriate much of that at this point since we no longer have people trained in those technologies on any scale that matters. At least we still grow the best pigs on the planet. Of course, the Chinese bought North America’s largest pork producer (Smithfield) last year, so now all those swine farmers work for the Chinese. We didn’t even have to outsource for them to own the means of production and profits.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 3:39 pm
ghung — Yeah, the truth hurts. And that article hurt me. I immediately recognized it as one that would give Makati1 something to crow about, and not wanting to be a sore loser, I posted it to make sure he gets to read it (and wield it however he desires).
I’m still with Davy on one solid point, however, and that is, if/when America sinks, the rest of the world will get sucked into the vortex. We’re all bound together through complexity, global banking and a gazillion interconnected parts. But still, that article does paint a very bleak and yet I’m afraid very truthful portrait of America. And yeah, it hurts to know we’ve sunk so far.
ghung on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 3:50 pm
NR – I doubt the world would take long to adjust to trade without the dollar. We forget that virtually all of these economies/societies were utterly devastated within the last century and are quite adept at bouncing back. They’ll miss our agricultural exports and movies more than anything… oh wait, they’ll just buy the means of production at the foreclosure sale, and we’ll all work for them. Didn’t I see a TV add to that effect somewhere?
Northwest Resident on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 4:18 pm
ghung — I used to think the idea of the world “dropping the dollar” was just a semi-conspiracy theory and probably not realistic. I admit, my opinion on that is starting to change.
But in regards to this sentence:
“The U.S. economy is an ocean liner holed below the waterline. In the stateroom, the band plays on – but, on the bridge, the outcome is clear.”
I would argue that the entire global economy is an ocean liner holed below the waterline and that the outcome is clear.
The reason why I believe this is because as shortonoil and others have repeatedly pointed out, the ability of oil to power the global economy is declining, and rapidly. No industrialized nation can keep their economy together without sufficient energy, and no economy that is based on selling into those industrialized economies will do much better.
At the bottom of it all lies oil, and the fact that we’re entering a period of energy declines which can only lead to chaos and severe geopolitical tensions. I still believe that when the American economy sinks, all the other boats will go down with it, if not before.
Also, who is going to argue that China is doing just fine, or Japan, or Europe, or Russia? We’re all already in the process of swirling down together, each in his own way, but at the base of it all is still that damn lack of cheap oil upon which it was all built.
Just my opinion…
Davy on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 4:26 pm
G-man/NR, the deindustrialization of America is overblown, yet, look at it this way if we are in a complexity and energy gradient downward I feel deindustrialization is actually a good thing. If we are heading were we think we are heading then the process of deindustrialized transition is better for those already in the process. I have high praise for the Greeks in this respect.
Asia is done for. The population is far too large for a manageable descent. The population has urbanized and into dense mega cities. Food will be a significant issue and it is food that will be in the end the paramount collapse variable. I would call it the lead Liebig variable to collapse.
Davy on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 4:39 pm
NR, since we are brain farting here, I will mention this.
The ability to decouple was lost in the early 90’s. We are now so codependent there is no way to keep advanced factories humming without global trade, finance, communication, distributions, and security. For that matter food supplies and fuel flowing
Many do not realize how vulnerable all economies are to just a minor disruption of economic activity and resource supplies. A few significant disruptions can derail a modern economy. We are so far from resilient anymore because of this dangerous trend towards smart, efficient, dispersed, and short term. It is so crazy to think we would let ourselves get this far out on a limb with this big of a population. We truly are a dead end species.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 4:57 pm
Davy — Too interconnected is the way I like to phrase it. Even making a simple pencil requires the effort of thousands of people and major industries and energy-intensive mining and shipping from all around the world. If one link breaks for any length of time, the whole chain starts to clog up. It is all synchronized, fine tuned, and must have oil to operate. And that’s just a pencil.
We traded resilience and self-sufficiency for high tech. But high tech is totally dependent on oil, just exactly what we’re finding more difficult to come by with each passing day. Without sufficient oil/energy, it all falls apart.
And so, ultimately, it is all going to fall apart. Not just in America. Everywhere.
I think we have total agreement on this subject.
Makati1 on Wed, 12th Nov 2014 7:11 pm
BAU will “fall apart” but survival and a decent lifestyle will be more possible in some places than in others. Places that do not have to endure cold winters, that have a good, wide-spread knowledge of farming without machinery or chemical fertilizers, that already have a culture of self-sufficiency, close family ties, etc. That will NOT be most of the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, or New Zealand. China has to deal with the cold in the north.
Russia is probably best suited and can already cope with cold weather. Plentiful resources for heat and energy on an Iron Age scale. Maybe even survival of some of the smaller cities with reduced populations. The necessities have not disappeared there … yet.
As far as the Ps, we shall see. Some believe that numbers prevent it, but that is basing it on Western ideas and standards. A few million will die. Those with terminal diseases or infirmities will go first as they will everywhere else in the world. But then, they die every day here as well as there.
About 128 per 100,000 per capita, per year, in the US from Cancers alone. The Ps, about 86 per 100,000 from Cancers.
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/all-cancers/by-country/
Drug use deaths:
US 1.50 per 100,000 (~4,750/yr)
Ps 0.01 per 100,000 (~ 10/yr)
Alcohol use deaths:
US 1.6 per 100,000 (~5,040/yr)
Ps 1.0 per 100,000 (~1,000/yr)
I did not pick diseases that are being medically prevented, as the numbers will not relate to the new reality in the post-techie medical years.
Sources for 2011 numbers:”We use the most recent data from these primary sources: WHO, World Bank, UNESCO, CIA and individual country databases for global health and causes of death.
We use the CDC, NIH and individual state and county databases for verification and supplementation for USA data.”