George Bush meets rising China at APEC summit

Hanoi, Nov 13: US President George W Bush will seek to revive his wounded presidency by breathing new life into stalled global trade talks and North Korea diplomacy at an Asia-Pacific summit that also marks Vietnam's coming-out party.

Bush's approval ratings have slid to a fresh low following the Democrat Party's victory in last week's congressional elections, raising questions about how much he can do in the remaining two years of his term.

The elections came the same week China announced that its foreign exchange reserves -- mostly held in the form of US debt -- had crossed the $1 trillion mark.

Fresh off summits it hosted the past month with African and Southeast Asian leaders, China is showing the Pacific rim that power as well as money is flowing its way.

Beijing has been chairing talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear programmes. And while Pyongyang is not a member of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, it will feature prominently in discussions this week.

''In many respects, the larger story line that's playing out at APEC is China's rise and what institutions in Asia are doing about it,'' said Kurt Campbell, at Washington's Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), comparing it to the rise of the United States in the early 20th century.

Free Trade Pact

Bush will meet four other leaders involved in the fitful North Korea talks at APEC's weekend summit: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

The foreign ministers of those five countries, or their envoys, could meet on APEC's margins. A five-party huddle without the north is something Washington has wanted for some time.

Security issues, though, are not on the formal agenda of what is meant to be a meeting about trade and investment.

APEC says its 21 members account for nearly half of global trade, 40 per cent of the world's population and 56 per cent of the world's gross domestic product.

The summit will discuss implementing a free trade and investment pact among APEC members that was first articulated at the Bogor, Indonesia, meeting in 1994.

However, the vision of a vast free trade area along the Pacific rim has lost considerable momentum to a plethora of mini-deals -- at least 50 FTAs have been agreed or under discussion among countries represented at APEC, experts say.

Reviving the Doha round of global trade talks will be a key objective at the APEC meetings, although a ''Hanoi Action Plan'' to advance the Asia-Pacific free trade area is intended to be the main legacy of the Hanoi meeting.

If not actually dormant, progress toward APEC's dream FTA has been glacial, as encapsulated by the title of the declaration for this meeting: ''The Hanoi Plan of Action on the Pusan Roadmap toward the Bogor goals''.

Last year's APEC meeting was in Pusan, South Korea.

LOT OF HOT AIR Japan was sceptical as to whether anything meaningful would be achieved at APEC, said Robyn Lim, Professor of International Relations at Nanzan University.

''It's a lot of hot air. I suppose there will be useful bilaterals on the side. So people will get a chance to talk to Bush, although he is now obviously a lame duck.'' Washington remains the most important trade or security partner for almost all APEC members ''and the American president generally has better relations with all of them than they do with each other'', said Michael Green, a Japan expert at CSIS.

However, Bush has only until mid-2007 to make trade deals under 'fast-track' authority that a new Democrat-controlled Congress is almost certain to let expire.

Senior officials began setting the agenda yesterday for the series of meetings that ends on Nov. 19 with the leaders' summit.

Foreign and trade ministers will meet Wednesday and Thursday and a parallel summit of business chief executives will be held at the weekend.

Vietnam makes its debut on the world stage with approval to become the newest member of the World Trade Organisation by year-end, a tribute to the country's economic success.

Hanoi released all the political prisoners that were on a US State Department list ahead of the meeting and can point to an improved record on religious and human rights.

In return, it is expecting Bush to come to the APEC meeting with ratification from the US Congress that it now has normalised trade ties with its former foe.

Reuters