&w=3840&q=100)
Trump-Xi meet likely in Shanghai or on the sidelines of Apec summit in South Korea: Report
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea, set for October 30 to November 1, offers a key opportunity for Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump to meet, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, citing sources.
Trump might visit China beforehand or meet Xi on the sidelines of the Apec event in Gyeongju, where Xi plans to attend, though Trump's participation is unconfirmed, the Hong Kong based outlet reported.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
This month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met face-to-face, a step toward a potential leaders' summit.
Last month, Xi invited Trump and his wife to China, an invitation Trump reciprocated. Rubio noted a 'strong desire on both sides' for a presidents' meeting.
US-China relations have been rocky since Trump's January return to the White House, as the US leader issued threats of imposing 145 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods.
Both sides have since worked on stabilising ties, reaching a preliminary trade deal easing China's rare-earth export restrictions and US technology trade barriers.
Analysts suggest a pre-Apec meeting in China, possibly in Shanghai, is likely to differentiate from Trump's 2017 Beijing visit.
Diao Daming of Renmin University was quoted by SCMP as saying: 'Under favourable conditions and an appropriate atmosphere, any form of interaction between the two leaders will aid in the stabilisation and development of US-China relations.'
Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund noted that China sees a summit as stabilising.
'They maintain that a leaders' meeting could create greater stability in the relationship,' she said, adding it could allow Xi to push for eased technology restrictions and the US reaffirmation against Taiwan independence.
Beijing views Taiwan as its territory, to be reunited if necessary by force. The US, while not recognising Taiwan's independence, opposes forceful takeover and is obligated to arm Taiwan.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Sun Chenghao of Tsinghua University said a summit could break deadlocks on issues like fentanyl and tariffs: 'If certain issues can be clarified directly through a summit between the two leaders, I believe we could see relatively swift breakthroughs in specific areas of US-China relations.'
Chen Qi of Tsinghua added: 'Both sides are indeed working to create a conducive atmosphere for a meeting.'
Cooperation on trade and export controls could foster positive interactions.
Observers note that Trump's greater eagerness gives Beijing leverage.
'It's up to China. Trump would be on a plane to Beijing tomorrow if he could,' said Jeremy Chan of Eurasia Group.
'China is very protocol driven and wants all agreements lined up well in advance while Trump would be happy to hash it all out over a Big Mac.'
However, Taiwan or hawkish US actions could derail plans. 'The summit will be well telegraphed in advance,' Chan said. 'But all it would take would be one slip up along the way to derail the whole thing.'
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
a few seconds ago
- Time of India
Tibet dam construction begins: How China's mega project could irreversibly change a fragile area
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads China is building the largest power plant the world has ever seen, in a very remote corner of Tibet. But the $167 billion hydropower dam has environmentalists and neighbouring countries the Big Take Asia Podcast, host Menaka Doshi speaks to Bloomberg's Dan Murtaugh about the engineering and geopolitical challenges, and the impact construction will have on the country's is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation:Earlier this month, China officially started construction on a massive hydropower dam in news anchor (in Chinese): Li Qiang announced the start of the hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river, and the construction of the project officially kicked dam, when completed, will be the biggest power plant on the three times bigger than the largest power plant in the world right now. It's more than all of the power plants in Poland combined.(Dan Murtaugh covers the energy industry for Bloomberg from Beijing.)The amount of cement they're estimating they'll need, it would be enough to fill more than 50 Hoover dams. And the amount of steel, it'd be enough to build 116 Empire State mega project comes with a mega price tag – $167 would be one of the most expensive undertakings for infrastructure in human history. More expensive than the International Space Station. You're looking at, you know, decades-long projects like building the US interstate highway system before you get to comparable amounts of says the dam will provide a major source of clean energy. More importantly, it will boost the country's slowing economy. But the project carries huge engineering and environmental risks and could strain relations with two of its neighbours, India and Indian government has been worried about, if China was able to build a dam, they would then be able to use sort of water access as a pain point if there was an eventual conflict between the countries. And there's gonna be all of this human activity in a place that's been remote for most of its history. You hope for the best, but human history has not been very kind to planet Earth. And you just have to wonder if they're gonna be able to, to reign in people from not damaging permanently this really unique is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Menaka Doshi, filling in for Oanh Ha. Every week we take you inside some of the world's biggest and most powerful economies, and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive this ever-shifting region. Today on the show — China bets big on a new mega dam. Why the project is raising alarm with its neighbours, and what its construction could mean for China's economy and its green energy it comes to building hydrodams, China's got plenty of experience. It operates two of the world's largest dams. That includes the world's biggest hydrodam – Three Gorges – which opened in central China in 2009. This new mega dam will be built in Tibet, a mountainous region just north of the border with in this bend on the Yarlung Tsangpo River that they call the Mêdog or Motuo Bloomberg energy reporter Dan Murtaugh says the dam is in an area that till recently was very difficult to get is a very, very, very steep drop. The river drops about 2,000 meters over a 50 kilometer stretch as it curves and bends through the mountains of the Himalayas. The county that it's at is up until 2013 didn't even have a highway that connected it. You'd have to walk a day, you know, or, or take a donkey or a horse to get to the river from the closest dams – like the Hoover dam – block the path of a river to create a reservoir. They then release the water, which turns turbines, and generates electricity. This Yarlung Tsangpo dam is they're trying to do here is a little bit more audacious. The idea is to drill a tunnel through the mountains down the steep, steep, steep gradient, and then divert some of the water from going around that big bend and instead go basically just vertically straight down the mountain. That steep gradient that this river moves on really allows you to get that water flowing at high enough speeds to be able to run the turbines to generate the the groundbreaking ceremony earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called the Yarlung Tsangpo dam the 'project of the century.' State engineers have said it has the potential to generate as much as 70 gigawatts of electricity. That's enough to power the United three times bigger than the largest power plant in the world right now. It is a national country level type of a generating asset. But China's huge. China has about 4,000 gigawatts of total generating capacity right now. Its peak demand is about 1,450 gigawatts. And so this project isn't going to have a huge world-changing impact on China's power sector. But it does do a couple of different things that are gonna be really beneficial to China's attempt to clean up its energy sector and will help China meet its energy transition goals of peaking emissions by 2030, and then reaching net-zero emissions by still relies on coal-powered plants to back up its more sustainable energy sources like solar and and solar, while cheap and while abundant, only generate when the wind blows and it doesn't really allow them to replace coal plants because at the end of the day you still need, you know, backup generation to make sure that when there's a period where there's no sun out and the wind stops, that people can still turn on their lights. What hydropower does that wind, solar don't do is it's what we call, uh, a dispatchable source. You can use it when it's needed. You can hold it back when it's not. Now hydropower is not perfectly dispatchable. Like if you are using a fossil fuel power plant, a gas or a coal power plant, you can really just sort of turn it off and on as needed. Hydropower, there's still some external things like whether there's a drought, if there's, you know, too much water, there's rain, you know, you have to open the floodgates. It's not perfect, but it is a clean power source that allows the grid to be a little bit more flexible in terms of, you know, generating when it's needed and not just, when the supply's reliability and flexibility are just two of the reasons why building a hydroelectric dam is so expensive. The Yarlung Tsangpo dam will cost $167 billion – more than the International Space Station did. And Dan says, the power it generates will be several times more expensive than any other energy it ends up being about a 70-gigawatt project as we expect it to be, you're talking about $2.4 million per megawatt. Now that compares to, an onshore wind plant right now that China would spend about $600,000 per megawatt on, or a solar power plant that China would spend about $400,000 per megawatt on. China infrastructure projects never lack for lenders, but this is not a white elephant. This is gonna be a hydropower project that sells a lot of electricity, that electricity has value. And so they're gonna be able to go to their lenders and say, listen, over 20, 30 years, we're gonna make a ton of money and we're gonna have the revenue to pay you says there's another reason the Chinese government has greenlit the project – and that's the state of China's way I think about it is, this is less of a hydropower project that's gonna provide some economic stimulus and more of an economic stimulus project that at the end of the day we'll be able to produce some hydropower. We're in this new sort of era where China's economy has been stagnant since COVID. People have been waiting for a kind of stimulus boost to recover it. Sectors like cement, like steel, like construction, those have been particularly hard hurt by the burst of the property bubble. And so you've got this perfect storm here where there's this project that requires a lot of those materials that used to be seen as maybe a little bit risky and, and costly to do, but now it kind of fits this dual need of both providing some economic stimulus for some hurting sectors, while also eventually providing a really, really large source of clean project is estimated to generate 200,000 new jobs and boost China's GDP every year for the next estimated that it's likely bigger than multiple different monetary policy actions that the central bank has taken over the past few years. Uh, so it could really help reflate the economy as they try to do their supply side reform over the coming China plans to transmit all that clean energy -- and what the dam's construction means for simmering tensions between Beijing and New Delhi -- that's after the has been talking about building a mega dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river for decades. But construction was approved only in December last year. Bloomberg's Dan Murtaugh says that's largely because the challenges to the project are so past conversations I've had with people, they were a little bit, iffy on whether it would ever get built because this is an incredibly remote site. It's very, very far away from any major population centers. And so, you have to transport millions of tons of cement and sand and aggregate and tens of thousands of workers up to this remote project site is in a seismically active area. That means engineers will need to ensure that the dam is strong enough to withstand earthquakes. And then there's the question of how to get the power generated by the dam to the places that need it — Beijing. Shanghai. Hong Kong – They're all thousands of miles away. Which means this isn't just one massive infrastructure project: It's this year when China uh announced this project as part of their work plan for this year, they not only said we're gonna try to develop hydropower in the Yarlung Tsangpo river, but they said we're gonna try to build a power line from Tibet to the Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen Bay area to transmit some of that. That itself is gonna be a major undertaking, it's gonna require lots of copper and aluminum and steel itself. Citibank has estimated just the transmission alone could be another 700 billion yuan, about a hundred billion dollars. And so that will also be a difficult domestic considerations in building this mega dam are considerable. But they might be overshadowed by international complications. Downstream from the site, the Yarlung Tsangpo river flows into India, and then into Bangladesh, and is critical to livelihoods in the China first announced back in December that they was gonna go forward with this, the Indian government reached out to the Chinese government. They raised alarm bells. They, uh, an Indian minister said in March that this was part of discussions the country's had in January. The Chinese government clearly thinks that they've told the Indian government, the downstream areas won't be affected. And they think that they've convinced Indian officials that, this is not a project that will harm the relationship between China and India has worsened in recent years after a long history of border disputes in the Himalayan is too early to say how this is gonna develop. Already, India has mooted building its own hydropower station across the border from this plant where they would be able to at least put in a little bit of their own control over the flow of the water and produce their own another complication – Tibet is a highly sensitive area. The region has long endured intense social, security, and religious controls under Beijing's policies. And though China has denied them – allegations of mass labor systems and political repression is a politically sensitive area. It's been in the sort of global crosshairs for decades. Tibet and and the Beijing government have a very long and fraught history. And, you know, frankly, as a foreign journalist, Tibet is an area that I'm not allowed to not just the political situation in Tibet, there are significant concerns around the environmental implications as is a really, really fragile area. It's a really unique, there, you know, you have this dry mountain air coming down from the Himalayas, meeting up with this, humid, uh, warm air coming up from the Indian Ocean. It's one of, you know, the most uniquely biodiverse spots in the world, and the idea of bringing tens of thousands of workers plus however many, tens if not hundreds of thousands more, will sort of pop up to create like the restaurants and food trucks and bars and karaoke and stuff to, to service these people. The idea that there's gonna be all of this human activity in a place that's been remote for most of its history. You hope for the best, but human history has not been very kind to planet Earth. And you just have to wonder if they're gonna be able to, to reign in people from not damaging permanently this really unique area.
Indian Express
a few seconds ago
- Indian Express
With AI plan, Trump keeps chipping away at a foundational environmental law
When President Donald Trump rolled out a plan to boost artificial intelligence and data centers, a key goal was wiping away barriers to rapid growth. And that meant taking aim at the National Environmental Policy Act — a 55-year-old, bedrock law aimed at protecting the environment through a process that requires agencies to consider a project's possible impacts and allows the public to be heard before a project is approved. Data centers, demanding vast amounts of energy and water, have aroused strong opposition in some communities. The AI Action Plan Trump announced last week would seek to sweep aside NEPA, as it's commonly known, to streamline environmental reviews and permitting for data centers and related infrastructure. Republicans and business interests have long criticized NEPA for what they see as unreasonable slowing of development, and Trump's plan would give 'categorical exclusions' to data centers for 'maximum efficiency' in permitting. A spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality said the administration is 'focused on driving meaningful NEPA reform to reduce the delays in federal permitting, unleashing the ability for America to strengthen its AI and manufacturing leadership. 'Trump's administration has been weakening the law for months.'It's par for the course for this administration. The attitude is to clear the way for projects that harm communities and the environment,' said Erin Doran, senior staff attorney at environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch. Here's what to know about this key environmental law, and Trump's effort to weaken it: NEPA is a foundational environmental law in the United States, 'essentially our Magna Carta for the environment,' said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group, referring to the 13th century English legal text that formed the basis for constitutions worldwide. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies proposing actions such as building roads, bridges or energy projects to study how their project will affect the environment. Private companies are also frequently subject to NEPA standards when they apply for a permit from a federal agency. In recent years, the law has become increasingly important in requiring consideration of a project's possible contributions to climate change. 'That's a really important function because otherwise we're just operating with blinders just to get the project done, without considering whether there are alternative solutions that might accomplish the same objective, but in a more environmentally friendly way,' Park said. But business groups say NEPA routinely blocks important projects that often take five years or more to complete.'Our broken permitting system has long been a national embarrassment,' said Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber's Global Energy Institute. He called NEPA 'a blunt and haphazard tool' that too often is used to block investment and economic development. The White House proposal comes as Congress is working on a permitting reform plan that would overhaul NEPA, addressing long-standing concerns from both parties that development projects — including some for clean energy — take too long to be approved. NEPA's strength — and usefulness — can depend on how it's interpreted by different a Republican, sought to weaken NEPA in his first term by limiting when environmental reviews are required and limiting the time for evaluation and public comment. Former Democratic President Joe Biden restored more rigorous reviews. In his second term, Trump has again targeted the law. An executive order that touched on environmental statutes has many agencies scrapping the requirement for a draft environmental impact statement. And the CEQ in May withdrew Biden-era guidance that federal agencies should consider the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when conducting NEPA reviews. Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court in May narrowed the scope of environmental reviews required for major infrastructure projects. In a ruling involving a Utah railway expansion project aimed at quadrupling oil production, the court said NEPA wasn't designed 'for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.' 'It's been a rough eight months for NEPA,' said Dinah Bear, a former general counsel at the Council on Environmental Quality under both Democratic and Republican presidents. John Ruple, a research professor of law at the University of Utah, said sidelining NEPA could actually slow things down. Federal agencies still have to comply with other environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act or Clean Air Act. NEPA has an often overlooked benefit of forcing coordination with those other laws, he said. Some examples of cases where NEPA has played a roleA botanist by training, Mary O'Brien was working with a small organization in Oregon in the 1980s to propose alternative techniques to successfully replant Douglas fir trees that had been clear-cut on federal lands. Aerially sprayed herbicides aimed at helping the conifers grow have not only been linked to health problems in humans but were also killing another species of tree, red alders, that were beneficial to the fir saplings, O'Brien said. The U.S. Forest Service had maintained that the herbicides' impact on humans and red alders wasn't a problem. But under NEPA, a court required the agency to redo their analysis and they ultimately had to write a new environmental impact statement. 'It's a fundamental concept: 'Don't just roar ahead.' Think about your options,' O'Brien said.O'Brien, who later worked at the Grand Canyon Trust, also co-chaired a working group that weighed in on a 2012 Forest Service proposal, finalized in 2016, for aspen restoration on Monroe Mountain in Utah. Hunters, landowners, loggers and ranchers all had different opinions on how the restoration should be handled. She said NEPA's requirement to get the public involved made for better research and a better plan.'I think it's one of the laws that's the most often used by the public without the public being aware,' said Stephen Schima, senior legislative counsel at environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice. 'NEPA has long been the one opportunity for communities and impacted stakeholders and local governments to weigh in.'Schima said rolling back the power of NEPA threatens the scientific integrity of examining projects' full impacts. 'Decisions are going to be less informed by scientific studies, and that is one of the major concerns here,' he said. Ruple said uncertainty from NEPA changes and competing opinions on how to comply with the law's requirements may invite even more litigation.'And all of this will fall on the shoulder of agencies that are losing the staff needed to lead them through these changes,' he said.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
a few seconds ago
- First Post
'India-US ties go beyond trade deal or ceasefire claims': Govt sources on why India didn't call Trump 'a liar'
Regarding Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's call for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare US President Donald Trump a 'liar', sources in the government have said that the India-US relationship goes beyond the disagreement over the ceasefire and trade talks and should not be compromised on these issues. read more Sources in the Union government have stressed that the India-US relationship goes beyond the disagreement over the ceasefire in the India-Pakistan conflict earlier this year and cannot be compromised over the issue. Since May when India and Pakistan clashed for four days before reaching a ceasefire on May 10, US President Donald Trump has claimed that he brokered the ceasefire between the two countries. India, on the other hand, has maintained that Pakistan made a request after four days of battering that India granted. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should publicly declare Trump a 'liar' over his false claims. Notably, while the government has not used the word 'liar', it has repeated multiple times that the ceasefire was a result of India accepting Pakistan's request and no third-party intervention was at play there. 'If Narendra Modi has even 50 per cent of the courage of Indira Gandhi, he should declare in the House that Trump is lying about the ceasefire,' said Rahul. On the intervening night of May 6-7, India launched Operation Sindoor and struck terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK). It was launched in response to the attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam in which terrorists killed 26 people on April 22. After Pakistan responded to Indian strikes with attacks on Indian civilian and military sites, India struck Pakistani military sites, including airbases and air defence units and, after four days of battering, Pakistan reached out to India with a request for a ceasefire on May 10. India granted Pakistan the request. India-US ties go beyond disagreements, say sources Sources in the Union government have said that the India-US relationship goes beyond ongoing differences, such as differences over the ceasefire in the India-Pakistan conflict and ongoing trade talks. Even as the August 1 deadline for a trade deal is just around the corner, India and the United States have not been able to reach any deal. It is believed that the Trump administration's refusal to respect Indian red lines about sensitive sectors of dairy and agriculture and genetically modified (GM) crops is the main barrier in the two sides reaching a deal. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump on Tuesday said that India will likely face 20-25 per cent tariff starting August 1, which will be much higher than the 15 per cent tariff that he has imposed on the European Union (EU) and Japan that he has struck deals with. Sources said that the United States has so far stood with India in disputes with China, such as during the Doklam standoff of 2017, and such an important relationship cannot be compromised on one or two differences. Moreover, sources stressed that the prime minister has publicly declared that no leader asked India to stop the war. Similarly, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that Modi and Trump never had the discussion about stopping the war. Sources further said that the Congress party has been in power before and it should know how governments function, suggesting that the party should realise the kind of words that the government would use to assert disagreement with the United States. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
