APEC China 2014 Summit held in Beijing
November 12, 2014 Category APEC China 2014, Weekly
Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the two-day APEC China 2014 Summit in Beijing on November 10 and 11. He also held bilateral meetings with many of the state and government leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members, including U.S. President Obama, Russian President Putin and also Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the first time both leaders held talks since they assumed office in the fourth quarter of 2012 and an indication that Sino-Japanese relations are on the mend. (Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012 and Chinese President in March 2013). The Xi-Abe meeting lasted half an hour.
APEC member economies will begin studying issues surrounding the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) and will submit recommendations by the end of 2016. The FTAAP was initiated by the U.S. years ago but Washington later shelved it in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which excludes China. The Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), an official observer of the summit, said in its State of the Region report that the global economy would be boosted by USD2.4 trillion if all 21 APEC economies joined the FTAAP, but Eduardo Pedrosa, PECC Secretary General, said that while the trade agreement would not happen overnight, it was essential to lay the groundwork. The TPP agreement would only involve 12 APEC members compared to the FTAAP’s 21. Experts said the different trade pacts are not mutually exclusive.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced a deal to extend visas for Chinese visitors to the U.S. for up to a decade, a move which would be reciprocated by China. Student visas will be extended to five years. About 1.8 million Chinese visited the U.S. last year, Obama said, contributing USD21 billion to the economy and supporting more than 100,000 jobs for Americans. “This agreement could help us more than quadruple those numbers,” Obama said. Obama added that he hopes to make progress on a bilateral investment treaty that will open the door to massive Chinese investment in the U.S., and vice versa. “The United States welcomes the rise of a prosperous, peaceful and stable China,” Obama said in a speech at the summit. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry emphasized the need for a concerted APEC-wide push to tackle corruption, echoing a similar call by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. U.S. and Chinese leaders also announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by close to a third over the next two decades. China will aim for a peak in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, while the United States will strive to cut total emissions by more than a quarter by 2025, as the two countries try to drive through a new global climate pact in Paris next year.
President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, witnessed the signing of 16 agreements, the bulk of them in the energy sector. Russia’s Rosneft and the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) signed an agreement for the Chinese firm to take a 10% stake in Vankorneft, the upstream subsidiary of Rosneft and operator of the lucrative Vankor oilfield. Vankorneft will supply China with USD7 billion worth of oil each year. CNPC also signed deals on gas supplies and transport routes, while several banking agreements between China and Russia were also inked.
In 2001, when China hosted the APEC Summit in Shanghai, the country was about to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO). Today, its economic size is five times larger.
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