• US Treasury“s Yellen to meet Chinese vice premier ahead of APEC summit
• U.S. Treasury“s Yellen to meet Chinese vice premier ahead of APEC summit
• Multinationals plan moves to minimise China risk, ECB survey shows
• China, Australia agree to turn the page as tensions ease
• Albanese China trip: PM stops short of saying he trusts Xi but points to ‘promising signs’ with Beijing
• Pacific Islands Forum to focus on climate and China after Solomon Islands’ deal with Beijing
• Chinese Migration to US Increasing Along Dangerous Path in Panama

US Treasury“s Yellen to meet Chinese vice premier ahead of APEC summit

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-yellen/us-treasurys-yellen-to-meet-chinese-vice-premier-ahead-of-apec-summit-idUSKBN3210JR

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in San Francisco this week to try to deepen a fledgling economic dialogue between the world's two largest economies ahead of a U.S.-hosted summit of Pacific Rim leaders.

The Treasury said the Nov. 9-10 meetings will also convene the new economic and financial forums launched in October by the Treasury and China's finance ministry and central bank.

Yellen first met with He, China's new economic czar, in July, when she visited Beijing to try to stabilize a deteriorating U.S.-China relationship amid growing U.S. restrictions on sensitive technologies.

The San Francisco meetings will take place just before the Biden administration hosts ministers and leaders of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation countries from Nov. 11-17 -- a gathering during which U.S. President Joe Biden is aiming to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A senior U.S. Treasury official downplayed the idea that there would be specific "deliverables" from the Yellen-He meetings, saying it was not a "policy trade" situation "where we trade one thing for another."

But the official said a key aim for Yellen was gaining a better understanding of how the new U.S.-China economic communication line will work, and how to make sure that "it is not vulnerable to shocks," adding that there will be more frequent interactions.

Yellen also is keen to discuss what steps Chinese officials are contemplating to support their flagging economic growth, and what circumstances might change their policy path.

Amid growing concerns that China will try to dump more manufactured goods on U.S. and global markets, Yellen is expected to warn He against using massive industrial subsidies to state firms and shutting U.S. companies out of domestic markets, the official said.

"This week, I will speak to my counterpart about our serious concerns with Beijing's unfair economic practices, including its large-scale use of non-market tools, its barriers to market access, and its coercive actions against U.S. firms in China," Yellen said in an opinion piece published by the Washington Post.

She reiterated that the U.S. was seeking "healthy competition" with China and was not trying to "trigger a "disorderly wholesale private-sector pullback from China with actions to diversify supply chains and protect U.S. national security."

The communications so far have helped U.S. officials to explain policies such as export controls and restrictions on outbound U.S. investment to China to counterparts in Beijing.

But Yellen said her engagement with He was not meant to reconstitute the broad, Obama-era U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which was widely criticized for its ineffectiveness.

Instead, Yellen said she was "focusing on specific, high-priority economic topics on which we can make tangible progress."

Among these are cooperating on global challenges such as tackling climate change, speeding debt relief to poor countries, and reducing illicit financial flows that support terrorism and the illegal drug trade.

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U.S. Treasury“s Yellen to meet Chinese vice premier ahead of APEC summit

https://reuters.com/article/usa-china-yellen/u-s-treasurys-yellen-to-meet-chinese-vice-premier-ahead-of-apec-summit-idUSKBN3210JR

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in San Francisco this week to try to deepen a fledgling economic dialogue between the world's two largest economies ahead of a U.S.-hosted summit of Pacific Rim leaders.

The Treasury said the Nov. 9-10 meetings will also convene the new economic and financial forums launched in October by the Treasury and China's finance ministry and central bank.

Yellen first met with He, China's new economic czar, in July, when she visited Beijing to try to stabilize a deteriorating U.S.-China relationship amid growing U.S. restrictions on sensitive technologies.

The San Francisco meetings will take place just before the Biden administration hosts ministers and leaders of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation countries from Nov. 11-17 -- a gathering during which U.S. President Joe Biden is aiming to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A senior U.S. Treasury official downplayed the idea that there would be specific "deliverables" from the Yellen-He meetings, saying it was not a "policy trade" situation "where we trade one thing for another."

But the official said a key aim for Yellen was gaining a better understanding of how the new U.S.-China economic communication line will work, and how to make sure that "it is not vulnerable to shocks," adding that there will be more frequent interactions.

Yellen also is keen to discuss what steps Chinese officials are contemplating to support their flagging economic growth, and what circumstances might change their policy path.

Amid growing concerns that China will try to dump more manufactured goods on U.S. and global markets, Yellen is expected to warn He against using massive industrial subsidies to state firms and shutting U.S. companies out of domestic markets, the official said.

"This week, I will speak to my counterpart about our serious concerns with Beijing's unfair economic practices, including its large-scale use of non-market tools, its barriers to market access, and its coercive actions against U.S. firms in China," Yellen said in an opinion piece published by the Washington Post.

She reiterated that the U.S. was seeking "healthy competition" with China and was not trying to "trigger a "disorderly wholesale private-sector pullback from China with actions to diversify supply chains and protect U.S. national security."

The communications so far have helped U.S. officials to explain policies such as export controls and restrictions on outbound U.S. investment to China to counterparts in Beijing.

But Yellen said her engagement with He was not meant to reconstitute the broad, Obama-era U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which was widely criticized for its ineffectiveness.

Instead, Yellen said she was "focusing on specific, high-priority economic topics on which we can make tangible progress."

Among these are cooperating on global challenges such as tackling climate change, speeding debt relief to poor countries, and reducing illicit financial flows that support terrorism and the illegal drug trade.

Related Galleries:

Multinationals plan moves to minimise China risk, ECB survey shows

https://reuters.com/article/ecb-survey-china/multinationals-plan-moves-to-minimise-china-risk-ecb-survey-shows-idUSKBN3210OI

More than 40% of multinational firms surveyed by the European Central Bank expect to move production to politically friendlier countries in the coming years, with risk related to China cited as the main concern, a paper showed on Monday.

Firms have increasingly discussed shifting production sites after the pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine disrupted value chains, but there has been little empirical evidence of mass relocations.

Seeking on-the-ground confirmation, the ECB surveyed 65 very large firms with a global footprint and 49% said they were looking to "near-shore", or bring production closer to the point of sales.

In total, 42% wanted to "friend-shore" some operations, or move them to more welcoming locations.

"As to those countries which posed – or could pose – a risk to supply chains in their sector more generally, two-thirds of all respondents cited China," the ECB said in an Economic Bulletin article.

More than half of the firms sourced critical materials from a specific country or small number of countries, and nearly all said that these supplies now faced elevated risk.

"A large majority of these identified China as that country, or one of those countries, with all of them considering this an elevated risk," the ECB added.

Near-shoring was already a tendency in recent years but friend-shoring is a new phenomenon as only 11% said they were already pursuing such a strategy in the past five years.

The European Union is still likely to be a loser in such corporate movements as the number or firms looking to move production out of the bloc remains larger than the number moving it in, and this could have a "significant" impact on employment.

The moves could also fuel inflation as close to half of firms said they expected the changes to result in higher prices, the paper added.

China, Australia agree to turn the page as tensions ease

https://reuters.com/article/china-australia/china-australia-agree-to-turn-the-page-as-tensions-ease-idUSKBN3210B6

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday that a "healthy and stable" relationship with Australia served each country's interests, and that it was important to move forward with strategic ties.

Mutual benefit is what China wants, Xi told Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the first Australian leader to visit Beijing since 2016, as both men met at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of the Chinese capital.

A strong relationship between China and Australia "will be beneficial into the future," Albanese told Xi in their second face-to-face talks in a year.

On his visit, Albanese is seeking to mend relations between the trading partners after disputes in recent years - over issues ranging from security concerns to the origin of COVID-19 - triggered Chinese blocks on Australian products including wine, barley and beef.

Earlier on Monday, Albanese stopped by Beijing's Temple of Heaven, following in the footsteps of the first Australian leader to visit China five decades ago as diplomatic relations were being established.

At the historic landmark, Albanese posed for a photograph at the circular Echo Wall, the spot where Australia's then prime minister, Gough Whitlam, stood in 1973, a year after the two countries established ties.

"In China we often say that when drinking water, we should not forget those who dug the well," Xi said. "The Chinese people will not forget Prime Minister Whitlam for digging the well for us."

For decades, China and Australia built a relationship on trade, with Beijing becoming Canberra's biggest commercial partner with purchases of Australian food and natural resources.

But ties soured after Australia in 2017 accused China of meddling in its politics. The following year, Australia banned equipment from Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co (HWT.UL) for its 5G network out of national security fears.

An Australian call in 2020 for an international inquiry into the origin of the COVID pandemic, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, infuriated Beijing, which responded with blocks on various Australian imports.

As relations deteriorated, China warned its students against studying in Australia, citing racist incidents, threatening a multi-billion-dollar education market.

But Albanese took steps to stabilise relations after he became prime minister in May last year and met Xi on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia in November.

China soon began lowering trade barriers, allowing imports of coal in January and ending tariffs on barley in August. Last month, Beijing agreed to review dumping tariffs of 218% on Australian wine.

"I think there are promising signs," Albanese told reporters earlier on Monday.

"We've already seen a number of the impediments to trade between our two nations removed and an uplift already, substantial uplift, in the trade between our two nations in issues like barley already restarting."

China's January-September imports from Australia increased 8.1% from a year earlier to $116.9 billion, Chinese customs data show. In 2022, imports plunged 12.7% to $142.1 billion.

But obstacles remain with Beijing's projection of power among Pacific island nations alarming Australia, while its security alliance with the United States and Britain in the Indo-Pacific has stoked China's worries about containment.

Australian backing of a U.N. ruling rejecting China's territorial claims in the South China Sea has also angered Beijing, which has told Canberra the issue is not its concern.

Australia says the South China Sea is an important passageway for its trade with Japan and South Korea.

"What I've said is that we need to cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must and engage in our national interest," Albanese said.

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Albanese China trip: PM stops short of saying he trusts Xi but points to ‘promising signs’ with Beijing

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/06/albanese-china-visit-xi-jinping-trust-china-australia-relationship

Anthony Albanese has stopped short of saying he trusts the Chinese president but says he’s convinced he is building a constructive relationship with Xi Jinping.

Ahead of Albanese’s first meeting with Xi on Chinese soil ­– the first engagement at that level since 2016 – reporters asked the prime minister on Monday whether he was convinced he could trust the Chinese president.

During his recent state visit to Washington, the US president, Joe Biden, advised Australia’s prime minister to trust China “but verify” during this attempted rapprochement. This was in reference to a saying Ronald Reagan used in relation to America’s dealings with the Soviet Union on nuclear disarmament.

In China today, Albanese stopped short of using the word trust, but said he and Xi were building a rapport. Albanese noted the two countries had different political systems but he said his interactions with the president suggested he was a man of his word.

“He has never said anything to me that has not been done,” Albanese said on Monday. “And that’s a positive way that you have to start off dealing with people.

“We recognise that we come from different political systems, very different values arising from that and very different histories, but we deal with each other on face value.

“My job is to represent Australia’s national interests and he is the leader of a different nation with different interests.”

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Albanese said his mantra was to “cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest”. He said he looked forward to meeting Xi in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday evening.

“I think there are promising signs,” Albanese said. “We have already seen a number of the impediments to trade between our two nations removed and an uplift already, a substantial uplift, in the trade between our two nations.”

Albanese said de-escalating the trade war with China meant more Australian jobs.

Asked what he would say to Australian mortgage holders ahead of another potential interest rate rise on Tuesday, Albanese said normalising the trade relationship had a positive impact on the economy and on inflation.

Albanese began his China visit in the country’s commercial capital, Shanghai, attending the country’s largest international trade expo on Saturday before arriving in Beijing on Sunday evening.

The prime minister started his day in Beijing with a tour of the Temple of Heaven – a site Gough Whitlam visited in 1973 when the former Labor prime minister visited the country to open diplomatic relations. Albanese was accompanied by the minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, who will meet China’s foreign minister on Monday afternoon in the capital.

Albanese was due on Monday afternoon to meet Zhao Leji, the chair of the National People’s Congress standing committee. The congress is China’s legislature. On Monday evening he will meet Xi in the Great Hall of the People.

Albanese was due on Monday afternoon to meet Zhao Leji, the chair of the National People’s Congress standing committee. The congress is China’s legislature. On Monday evening he will meet Xi in the Great Hall of the People.

Monday’s meeting with the president is Albanese’s second meeting with Xi. After efforts were made by Australia and China to reset the bilateral relationship after the federal election in 2022, the two met for the first time in the margins of the G20 summit in Bali in 2022.

Pacific Islands Forum to focus on climate and China after Solomon Islands’ deal with Beijing

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/pacific-islands-forum-2023-pif-climate-crisis-china-solomon-islands-beijing-security-deal

Pacific island leaders are descending on the Cook Islands for the region’s most important annual political gathering, with the talks likely to be dominated by the climate crisis and growing US-China rivalry.

The Pacific Islands Forum (Pif) is an 18-member grouping of 16 Pacific nations, including Australia and New Zealand, plus two French territories.

This year, Solomon Islands – which has drawn closer to China since signing a security agreement in 2022 – is reported to be sending a delegation led by the foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele, not the prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare.

Sogavare travelled to Beijing in July to sign a raft of deals including a new police cooperation agreement and said in September that the US should stop “lecturing” Pacific leaders.

The Cook Islands – roughly halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii – is hosting this year’s annual leaders’ meeting under the theme Our Voices, Our Choices and Our Pacific Way.

The event runs from Monday until Friday with most of the events held on the island of Rarotonga. However, leaders will travel to Aitutaki for crucial talks on Thursday.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is expected to arrive in the Cook Islands midweek to join the talks after he wraps up his trip to China.

Pacific Elders’ Voice, a group of former leaders across the region, has called on Pif to postpone a decision on whether to support Australia’s bid to co-host the 2026 UN climate conference in partnership with the Pacific.

One member of the group, the former Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga, said the leaders’ summit “must unanimously call on Australia to stop approving Pacific-killing coal and gas projects”.

“We reiterate that the Pacific Islands Forum should not rubber stamp Australia’s bid and that any endorsement must be based on commitments from Australia to take tangible climate action in the short term and commit to a fossil fuel phase-out in the near future,” Sopoaga said.

Vanuatu and Tuvalu have been leading a push for Pif leaders to endorse “a global, just and equitable phase-out of coal, oil and gas”.

But the prime minister of Fiji, Sitiveni Rabuka, appeared to express a pragmatic view during a visit to Australia last month. When asked about whether Australia needed to do more on climate, Rabuka said: “We’re realistic about our demands.”

Rabuka is expected to use the event to promote his concept of designating the Pacific as a “zone of peace” – a nod to the region’s desire to avoid being drawn into an escalation of tensions between the US and China.

The week’s Pif event is also expected to draw many delegates from further afield, including the US, the UK and Germany.

Pif has 21 dialogue partners including China, India, Japan and the US.

The US delegation will be led by its ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who is expected to “underscore the importance for all nations to support the international system”.

The director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program, Meg Keen, said leaders would probably assert the Pacific’s right to set its own direction “and push back at geostrategic priorities trumping Pacific development priorities”.

“There is huge diversity in this region, development priorities differ as do associations with major powers. The challenge for Pacific countries is to maintain strong regional cohesion,” Keen said.

“Where there are differences, such as seabed mining, major power recognition and development priorities, they need to maintain the flexibility to respect differences and build on the capacity to make the right decisions for each sovereign country.”

Keen said the top priority in the Pacific was climate action and the mobilisation of finances “to adapt and thrive in the face of the climate catastrophe”.

“This forum, Pacific island countries will be pushing not only for better access to global and donor finances to deal with the growing gaps, but also to broaden and diversify their options through more access to private sector and philanthropic societies,” she said.

Australia, she said, would use the meetings to demonstrate “its commitment to the Pacific family and to regionalism”.

Keen said one Australian priority was to gain support for the “Pacific Quality Infrastructure Principles” – a push to ensure that infrastructure investments advance local content, responsible borrowing, sound project oversight and private sector opportunities.

“Australia sees these principles as the strength of traditional donors like itself, and the weakness of Chinese infrastructure projects,” Keen said.

The US has been racing to reopen embassies and deepen links with Pacific countries in the wake of the China-Solomon Islands security pact.

The president, Joe Biden, welcomed Pacific leaders to the White House in September and announced further economic aid while declaring that “a great deal of the history of our world will be written across the Pacific over the coming years”.

At the same time, Biden announced formal US recognition of the Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign states. Sogavare skipped that summit.

The incoming prime minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon, is not expected to attend this week’s gathering in the Cook Islands, given that he is focused on coalition talks to form government.

He will be represented by his party’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, Gerry Brownlee, and the outgoing deputy prime minister, Carmel Sepuloni.

Chinese Migration to US Increasing Along Dangerous Path in Panama

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/chinese-migration-to-us-increasing-along-dangerous-path-in-panama/7338684.html

The trip through the Darién Gap forest area in Panama has become increasingly popular with migrants thanks to social media.

Panamanian officials say, in the first nine months of 2023, only Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Haitians crossed the Darién Gap in greater numbers than Chinese people.

Chinese migrants who seek this path first travel to Ecuador. The country does not require Chinese citizens to have visas to enter the country. Once in Panama, the migrants travel north to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Chinese asylum-seekers spoke to the Associated Press, as well as observers. They told of fleeing an increasingly repressive political climate and worsening economy.

The pandemic and China’s COVID-19 border policies temporarily slowed emigration. Now people are again leaving, as China's economy is struggling, and youth unemployment is high. The United Nations has projected China will lose 310,000 people through emigration this year, compared with 120,000 in 2012.

The movement is known as “runxue,” or the study of running away. The term started as a way to trick government agents who control internet content. The term uses a Chinese character that sounds like the English word “run” but means “to lightly wet." Now, runxue is an internet meme.

Cai Xia leads the online commentary site Yibao and is a former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

She says the movement represents the despair many in the country are feeling.

“They’ve lost hope for the future of the country,” said Cai, who now lives in the U.S. “You see among them the educated and the uneducated, white-collar workers, as well as small business owners, and those from well-off families.”

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested 22,187 Chinese for crossing the border illegally from Mexico from January through September. That is an almost 13 times increase from the same period in 2022. Such arrests reached 4,010 in September, up 70 percent from August. Chinese migrants now represent the ninth-highest nationality at the U.S. border and the highest outside of Mexico, Central and South America. The huge majority were single adults.

Migrants from China join Latin Americans in Ecuador to travel north through the Darién. They continue across several Central American countries before reaching the U.S. border. The trip is well-known enough that it has its own name in Chinese: walk the line, or “zouxian.”

Social media has supported the movement through the Darién Gap. Short videos and messaging sites provide information as well as step-by-step guides on how to go from China to the U.S. They include advice on what to bring, where to get guides, how to survive in the wild and more. There are sites that even tell migrants how much money to pay police for favorable treatment in different countries.

The trip can cost a migrant thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Many migrants who spoke to the AP did not give their full names. They said they were fearful it would hurt their chances for asylum. Some said they came for economic reasons and paid as much as $56,000 for the trip.

In recent weeks, Chinese migrants have made camps in the California desert as they wait to surrender to U.S. officials and ask for asylum.

Near the small town of Jacumba, hundreds crowded along a border wall. Others tried to sleep on large rocks nearby or under the few trees in the area. Small campfires keep them warm overnight. Without food or running water, the migrants depend on volunteers who provide water and simple meals.

I’m Caty Weaver.

 

The Associated Press reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

emigration –n. to leave a country to live somewhere else

character –n. (language) a symbol that is used in writing or printing to express meaning in a language that does not use an alphabet

meme – n. a picture, video, usage, or term that spreads through the internet

despair –n. a feeling of having no hope

white-collar –adj. related to or describing office jobs that are usually done at a desk