US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday urged China to keep buying US debt as she wrapped up her first overseas trip, during which she agreed to work closely with Beijing on the financial crisis.
Clinton made the plea shortly before leaving China, the final stop on a four-nation Asian tour that also took her to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, where she worked the crowds to try to restore the standing of the US abroad.
In Beijing, she called on Chinese authorities to continue buying US Treasuries, saying it would help jump-start the US economy and stimulate imports of Chinese goods.
“By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognizing our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together,” Clinton said at the US embassy.
Clinton had sought to focus on economic and environmental issues in Beijing, saying Washington’s concerns about the human rights situation should not be a distraction from those vital matters.
Beijing’s human rights record emerged nonetheless as an issue, as dissidents on Saturday reported being harassed or intimidated by Chinese authorities.
Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) largely agreed to disagree on human rights as they pledged future joint action on the economy and climate change.
The goodwill, also on display in her talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), could raise hope for a new era of cooperation between the two largest greenhouse gas emitters and two of the world’s top three economies.
Clinton began her day by attending a Protestant church service in west Beijing. Later, She met Chinese women’s rights advocates at the US embassy, but continued to steer clear of speaking on contentious human rights issues.
While expressing understanding for the weighty economic and environmental issues, dissidents who reported continued confinement in their homes yesterday urged Washington to keep human rights on the agenda.
“Chinese human rights defenders and civil society would suffer even more if the international community does not pay enough attention and [place] enough pressure on China,” prominent dissident Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕) said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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