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  1. #1
    MW
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    Amid strains, Obama puts bright face on China ties

    Amid strains, Obama puts bright face on China ties

    JOSH LEDERMANNov 10th 2014 1:11PM

    BEIJING (AP) -- Putting a bright face on the future of U.S. ties to China, President Barack Obama announced Monday that the two countries would start granting visas to each other's citizens valid for up to a decade. Yet thorny issues like human rights and trade lurked just under the surface, reflecting the tough road ahead for the two economic powers as Obama began a weeklong trip to the region.

    Obama, addressing Asian business leaders at a high-level summit, sought to dispel the notion that America's interest in Asia should be a cause for concern for China's leaders. Beijing has viewed Obama's engagement here with trepidation, suspecting the U.S. wants to limit China's rise, but Obama insisted that "one country's prosperity doesn't have to come at the expense of the other."

    "We want China to do well," Obama said. "We compete for business, but we also seek to cooperate on a broad range of challenges and shared opportunities."

    The visa announcement came just after Obama's arrival in Beijing - a down-payment on closer ties that allowed the president to portray the U.S. and China as partnering in good faith. Obama vowed that if the U.S. and China can work together, the entire world stands to benefit.

    "America's a Pacific power, and we are leading to promote shared security and shared economic growth in this century just as we did in the last," Obama said.

    On the sidelines of the economic summit, Obama also had a brief encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close ally of Chinese President Xi Jinping who has been locked in conflict with Obama over his country's actions in Ukraine. But the two leaders didn't have time to discuss any issues, said a senior U.S. official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.

    Throughout Obama's first day in China, there were abundant reminders of the stark differences that have left the world's two largest economies eying each other warily from opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean.

    At the U.S. Embassy, Obama hosted heads of state from the 11 other countries - excluding China - that are pursuing a long-delayed trade pact. Key obstacles to completing the deal remain, including Japan's objection to opening its markets to foreign competition, and U.S. officials said after the meeting that a final agreement was still a ways off.

    "We're going to keep on working to get it done," Obama said, calling the pact "the model for trade in the 21st century."

    White House officials have been more optimistic about the deal since last week's U.S. elections. Republicans, who tend to favor trade deals, won control of both chambers of Congress, making it more likely Obama can secure up-or-down approval for a final vote on the deal. That prospect was a rare silver lining for Obama in an election was disastrous for Obama's party and diminished his stature as he headed to Asia.

    The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been a cornerstone of Obama's much-touted effort to expand U.S. influence in Asia, but yet another irritant in his relations with China, which isn't a party to the talks and has responded by pushing its own regional trade deal.

    And in his remarks to Asian CEOs, Obama rattled off a litany of issues where the U.S. views China as not playing by the rules, including cyber-theft, currency manipulation, human rights and environmental standards. White House aides have said Obama plans to bring up such concerns during his meetings with Xi, but the president appeared to be carefully calibrating his words to avoid letting those disputes interfere with the broader relationship.

    Sitting down earlier with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Obama was guarded in his comments about pro-democracy protests that have seized Hong Kong, urging China's government to prevent violence there while calling the situation "historically complicated."

    "We're not going to stop speaking out on behalf of the things that we care about," Obama said, adding that those interests must be balanced with America's significant business interests with China.

    Under the visa agreement, business and short-term tourist visas will be valid for 10 years, while student and cultural exchange visas will last for five. Currently, such visas expire after just one year.

    Yet the actual benefits may be modest. The visa arrangement doesn't increase how long an American can remain in China or vice-versa, but rather how long the visa can be used to enter the country. And the same restrictions remain on who is eligible for a U.S. visa, including an in-person interview requirement that is arduous for those who don't live near a U.S. consulate.

    The White House said it hoped the deal would lure more Chinese travelers to the U.S. - and with it, billions of dollars into the U.S. economy. U.S. officials said it could drive up demand that would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S., without sacrificing national security. About 100 million Chinese traveled last year, but less than 2 percent of those came to the U.S.

    The U.S. plans to start issuing the new visas Wednesday. Officials said the agreement had been in the works for months.

    http://www.aol.com/article/2014/11/10/amid-strains-obama-puts-bright-face-on-china-ties/20991412/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D560962

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    MW
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    Does Obama actually have the power to do this without the approval of the U.S. Congress?

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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    Obama Extends Chinese Visas, Follows with U.S.-China Climate Pact

    by Michelle Moons 12 Nov 2014, 8:00 PM PDT

    Chinese citizens traveling to and from the United States on "short-term business and tourist travel" will now have the option to obtain 10-year visas, announced President Obama at this week’s APEC CEO Summit in China. “Under the new arrangement, student and exchange visas will be extended to five years; business and tourist visas will be extended to 10 years,” he declared.

    This comes as a drastic increase from prior policy by which non-immigrant visas (NIV) have been issued one year at a time, and it maxes out the limits of U.S. law which caps the length of any visa to 10 years.

    “More than 1.95 million NIV applications were processed for Chinese nationals in fiscal year 2014,” says the U.S. State Department. Chinese students make up the greatest portion of foreign students present in the U.S. but only 16 percent of all types of U.S. visas are issued to Chinese nationals.

    Senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett tweeted an image November 10, which claimed, “by 2021, today’s new visa policy will help: As many as 7.3 million Chinese travelers come to the United States.” The message goes on to claim this will “contribute nearly $85 billion per year to the U.S. economy” and “support up to 440,000 American jobs.” However public response to the message was overwhelmingly skeptical.

    President Obama has repeatedly stressed cooperation between the U.S. and China on China’s integration into the global economy, climate change initiatives, monitoring nuclear positions in North Korea and Iran, combating terrorism and Ebola, and movement toward an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area during this trip to Asia. He stated at the APEC CEO Summit, “Chinese direct investment in the United States has risen six-fold over the past five years.”

    “I am pleased that we continue to expand the ties between our peoples,” President Obama said in a joint press conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “The new visa extension that begins today will bring more Chinese tourists to the United States and more American tourists to see the magnificent sights of China. That will encourage more exchanges among our students. We welcome more Chinese students to the United States than from any other country. And I’m proud that this summer my '100,000 Strong' program reached our goal of more than 100,000 Americans studying in China in recent years. With these visa extensions, we’ll give more students this opportunity—both Chinese and Americans.”

    In addition to extending the length of Chinese visas, President Obama pushed climate change agreements between the two countries, announcing “a new target to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025” in the U.S., according to a White House press release. “President Xi Jinping of China announced targets to peak CO2 emissions around 2030, with the intention to try to peak early, and to increase the non-fossil fuel share of all energy to around 20 percent by 2030.”

    A 2014 Center for Immigration Studies raised questions of de facto amnesty when it revealed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents, stating, “The number of aliens who have received a final order of removal, but who are still in the United States, has risen to nearly 900,000.”

    While the reports showed a large portion of non-citizen departures from May 2005 to April 2009 were from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, the drastic reduction in deportations from the interior, “have plummeted from a peak of about 236,000 in 2009 to about 100,000 in 2014.”

    “The turn away from deporting immigrants from the interior of the country amounts to an open invitation for people to come to the U.S. on a legal visa and stay,” reported the Los Angeles Times on comments from Senator Jeff Sessions.

    “At least 99.92% of illegal immigrants and visa overstays without known crimes on their records did not face removal,” Senator Sessions’ staff conveyed to Breitbart News in March. However, policies such as the increase in length of Chinese visas brings into question whether this move is simply giving official status to those coming on Chinese visas who may have previously chosen to overstay their one-year visa instead of renewing. It also brings into question the level of oversight for those on extended visas. Now applicants may reside within and travel to and from the U.S. without the need to have visa applications reviewed and approved yearly.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...a-Climate-Pact
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