Leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies were to meet yesterday to chart ways to boost trade despite turmoil in the global economy, as aspiring powers China and Russia bid farewell to US President George W. Bush.
A week after a 20-nation summit in Washington urged action to repair the crippled financial system itself, the Asia-Pacific summit was expected to focus on defending free trade as a way to kickstart slowing economies.
“There is a substantially advanced boutique industry called ‘gloom and doom' that is all about people saying how bad it is,” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.
“You can either be part and parcel of that process or you can take up the mantle of leadership and do something about it,” he said.
Ministers from the APEC forum set the stage for the summit with a joint call against protectionism, with some airing concerns that Bush's successor Barack Obama would be less supportive of free markets.
The tightly guarded summit in the Pacific coast city was the last scheduled foreign trip for Bush, who leaves office on Jan. 20 with his approval ratings hovering at all-time lows.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was scheduled to hold a potentially confrontational final summit with Bush yesterday. Medvedev will tour four countries in Latin America, traditionally Washington's sphere of influence, with arms deals on the cards.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Moscow was only selling defensive weapons to Latin America — a swipe at the Bush administration, which infuriated Russia with plans for a missile defense shield in former Soviet bloc countries.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) also sought a greater role in Latin America, but both sides described his final meeting with Bush on Friday as friendly and even sentimental.
Hu told Bush he appreciated the “advances in ties achieved in the past few years” and invited him to visit China after leaving office, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) told reporters.
“He also expressed hope that the next US administration can recognize the importance of China-US ties,” Liu said in reference to Obama.
Bush allowed that he was “a little nostalgic” at his last meeting with Hu as head of state and highlighted stable relations with a rising China as a key achievement of his term.
However, Bush repeated his call for China to continue dialogue with representatives of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
He also pressed for further action on ending North Korea's nuclear program, a key area where Bush has hoped to achieve progress before he hands the keys of the White House to Obama.
North Korea was expected to take center-stage when Bush holds a three-way summit in Lima with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Japan has tense relations with North Korea in part because of the communist state's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians. Aso on Friday lobbied Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet to join international efforts to isolate Pyongyang.
Also See: Lien Chan may meet Bush, US official says
Also See: Japan’s embattled PM bows apologizes in wake of criticism
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS