（From Yahoo)US, China to hold top-level trade talks Tuesday

US, China to hold top-level trade talks Tuesday

by Veronica Smith Sun Sep 14, 1:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States and China hold cabinet-level trade talks in California this week amid tensions over China's massive export surplus and worries about the slowing global economy.

The talks come in the sunset of George W. Bush's Republican presidency that has seen trade disputes with China over a host of issues, ranging from copyright infringement, automobile parts and investment barriers to toxic toys and pet food.

The latest attempt to get the World Trade Organization's Doha Round of negotiations off the ground foundered in July, leaving the world's largest economy and Asia's superpower squared off in their corners.

US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez and US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, the lead negotiator at the July Doha talks in Geneva, will host Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan for the one-day meeting Tuesday.

Gutierrez and Schwab will co-chair the talks with Wang, who is responsible for Chinese economic and trade matters. US Secretary of Agriculture Edward Schafer will also participate in the session.

The talks will focus on three main issues -- "market access, intellectual property rights and transparency," Commerce Department spokeswoman Ann Marie Hauser told AFP late Friday.

The meeting will mark the 25th anniversary of the US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), a bilateral dialogue the Commerce Department bills as an effort "to resolve bilateral trade issues to expand trade opportunities."

The silver anniversary venue fittingly is the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda in southern California.

In 1972, Nixon was the first US president to visit China since the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. The Republican president sought greater dialogue with the Communist nation, and that included trade.

The bilateral trade talks come amid longstanding US concerns about China's currency, the yuan, which critics say is kept undervalued, and its bulging trade surplus.

US officials repeatedly have raised the issue of the value of the yuan, which some say is artificially low and thus a factor in the massive trade imbalance between the two countries.

The United States is saddled with a ballooning trade deficit with China, which hit a record 256.2 billion dollars last year.

The yuan has appreciated by around 20 percent against the dollar since China delinked its currency from the greenback in July 2005.

Critics say China maintains its yuan currency undervalued to bolster exports, and US lawmakers blame outsourcing to China for the loss of thousands of jobs.

The US has lost four million manufacturing jobs in the past eight years, most of them in Bush's first term in office, Lloyd Wood of the American Manufacturing Trade Coalition (AMTAC) said Friday.

"We want China to play by the rules," Wood told AFP, citing the yuan and US trade complaints against China filed at the WTO.

Wood recalled with amazement that after the Republican-led Congress "got fired" two years ago, no legislation sanctioning China over its currency has been voted on.

"There's lots of blame to share on the issue," he added. "Our government is not doing anything."

Erin Ennis, vice president of the US-China Business Council, downplayed expectations for the JCCT talks, saying its jurisdiction "is fairly narrow."

"We're not expecting any major breakthroughs at this meeting," she said in a phone interview.

Asked about the political implications on US trade policy of a new president, either the Democrats' Barack Obama or the Republicans' John McCain, in the White House in January, Ennis took a long view.

The council does not expect a shift in the US approach to trade with China because it has been on a "steady footing for 30 years," she said.

Chinese President, IOC President arrive at National Stadium for Beijing Olympics opening (from Xinhua)

Chinese President, IOC President arrive at National Stadium for Beijing Olympics opening
Source: Xinhua

BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao and International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge were ushered into the Presidential Box on the VIP stand of the National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest, in north Beijing on Friday night.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge (L) attend the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing, China, Aug.8, 2008. (Xinhua Photo)The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games is scheduled to start minutes later in the iconic structure of metal girders.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge attend the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing, China, Aug. 8, 2008.(Xinhua Photo)
Chinese President Hu Jintao and International OlympicCommittee President Jacques Rogge are ushered into the Presidential Box on the VIP stand of the National Stadium,known as the Bird's Nest, in Beijing, China, Aug. 8, 2008, prior to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.(Xinhua Photo)

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Chinese President Hu Jintao declares open Beijing Olympic Games(from China CCTV)

Chinese President Hu Jintao declares open Beijing Olympic Games

In his speech, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge congratulated Beijing on its dream coming true tonight.

"For a long time, China has dreamed of opening its doors and inviting the world's athletes to Beijing for the Olympic Games," said Rogge.
"You have chosen as the theme of these Games 'One World, One Dream.' That is what we are tonight," he added.

"These Games belong to you. Let them be the athletes' Games," the IOC chief told the athletes.
He also thanked Beijing, the Games organizers and the "gracious volunteers," before inviting President Hu to declare open the Games.

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Dazzling ceremony reveals China's world dream (from Yahoo)

Dazzling ceremony reveals China’s world dream

By Crispian Balmer

BEIJING (Reuters) - Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with volleys of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that wove ancient Chinese history with modern wizardry and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.

Drums thundered, firecrackers exploded and 14,000 performers poured through the Bird’s Nest stadium in a dazzling extravaganza that offered up a vision of global harmony echoing the Games’ motto “One World One Dream.”

Around 80 world leaders watched the show which celebrated the achievements of imperial China, totally ignoring the fraught 20th century, when civil war, the Japanese invasion and hardline Communist rule left the nation mired in poverty.

“Friends have come from afar, how happy we are,” an army of 2,008 drummers chanted, quoting the celebrated sage Confucius.

Friday’s ceremony caps seven years of work that has reshaped Beijing and sets the seal on an industrial boom that has turned the country into the world’s fourth largest economy.

However, the Olympic spotlight has also cast a harsh glare on the vast Asian nation, bringing the unrest in its Tibetan region to a wide audience and showing that China’s leadership is not ready to brook any internal dissent.
Pounding drums launched Friday’s ceremony on a hot and humid evening before giant fireworks in the form of footsteps blasted above the heart of the capital, crossing Tiananmen Square as they progressed to the steel-latticed Bird’s Nest.

The authorities opened the vast square, scene of a doomed student uprising in 1989, to let people watch the pyrotechnics, prompting thousands of delighted Beijing residents to rush into the esplanade screaming “Go China!.”

The Games carry a $43 billion price tag, dwarfing the $15 billion splashed out by Athens in 2004, and run until August 24, with 10,500 athletes from a record 204 nations chasing 302 gold medals in 28 sports.

Chinese President Hu Jintao declared the Games open.
Befittingly for the world’s most populous nation, Friday’s show unleashed wave upon wave of humanity into the arena, reveling in past glories, like the invention of gunpowder, but also more modern triumphs, like putting astronauts into space.

The careful choreography of the ceremony extended well beyond the stadium and 100,000 police fanned out to prevent attacks and protests, while dissidents have been kept out of sight.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued an appeal at the ceremony calling on warring nations to honor a traditional truce during the Games, but his message went unheeded with fierce fighting in Georgia during the day involving Russian forces.

Further denting the Olympic ideal of harmony, the two Koreas failed to agree to march at the opening as a unified team even though they managed that in 2004 and 2000.

The 91,000-strong crowd saved its largest roar of the evening for the entry of the Chinese team, which is confidently expected to top the medals table for the first time and was headed onto the field by basketball player Yao Ming.
Yao was accompanied by a young boy who survived an earthquake in the southwest of the country in May which killed some 70,000.

“For a long time, China has dreamed of opening its doors and inviting the world’s athletes to Beijing for the Olympic Games,” Jacques Rogge, head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said. “Tonight that dream comes true. Congratulations, Beijing!”

TAIWAN CHEERED
There were also big cheers for the United States, North Korea and Iraq, and a thunderous applause for Taiwan, signaling a further sign of a thaw after years of icy relations.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since their split in 1949 amid civil war and insists the self-ruled democratic island must one day return to the fold.
U.S. President George W. Bush stood and waved a stars and stripes flag as the American team marched into the stadium.

The Games are centered in Beijing, but will stretch more than 2,000-km, with equestrian events in Hong Kong, soccer dotted around the country and yachting in the eastern city of Qingdao.

The sporting action gets into top gear on Saturday with competition underway in 18 disciplines, including swimming and gymnastics, and seven gold medals up for grabs.

Among the early competitors is U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps, who could become the first athlete to win eight golds in a single Games and the most titled Olympian ever.

But as in 2004, the build up to the Beijing Games has been marred by drug taking. A number of athletes have failed tests in the weeks leading up to the Olympics and officials have promised about 4,500 doping checks in Beijing to root out the cheats.

(Reporting by Sophie Hardach, Catherine Bremer, Paul Majendie, Jason Subler, Lucy Hornby and Beijing bureau; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Glittering ceremony opens Beijing Games (from Yahoo)

Glittering ceremony opens Beijing Games

By Martyn Ziegler PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BEIJING (Ticker)—The eyes of the world were on Beijing as a glittering opening ceremony heralded the start of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

An audience of 91,000, including many of the world’s heads of state, were in the Bird’s Nest stadium for Friday’s ceremony.

American president George Bush, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and French president Nicolas Sarkozy were among the dignitaries while Britain was represented by Olympics minister Tessa Jowell.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be coming to the closing ceremony, as London will prepare to take the torch for the 2012 Games.

After a build-up dominated by pollution worries, and the occasional protest by human rights campaigners, organizers were relieved to get the ceremony underway.

Some measures of pollution had the level of particulates at almost four times the World Health Organization’s recommended level, and visibility in the Chinese capital was as poor as it has been for two weeks.

The threat of rain appeared to have receded, however, despite some gloomy forecasts.

The opening was carried out by Hu Jintao, president of the People’s Republic of China, as part of a ceremony expected to last 3 1/2 hours.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said in the official program: “Tonight we will witness history being made. For the first time, the Olympic Games are in China, marking not only a major milestone for the Chinese sports movement but also for the entire Olympic movement.

“For 16 days, the Beijing Games will not only be a moment of sporting excellence, they will also be the discovery of other countries and will allow us to share the passion that only an event like the Olympic Games can bring to life.”
The Chinese authorities imposed the strictest of security precautions and deployed an extra 100,000 soldiers and police on the streets Friday evening.
Beijing’s international airport was closed for the duration of the ceremony, and a no-fly zone was imposed in the air above the city.

The Bird’s Nest stadium was protected by rows of tall fences, surveillance cameras and anti-aircraft missile batteries.

A blast of fireworks began the ceremony, followed by 2,008 drummers playing a fou - a Chinese percussion instrument - in perfect unison.

The spectacular continued with 29 giant firework ‘footprints’ - representing the number of modern Olympic Games - from the center of Beijing to the stadium.

A light-show followed, with giant illuminated Olympic rings being raised up from the floor of the stadium.

The sheer scale of the ceremony - a total of 10,300 performers took part - must have made it a daunting sight for the observers from the London 2012 organizing committee.

The cost of the event must have been staggering, too, but the Chinese authorities have refused to say what the total bill for the opening ceremony is.
It is reported to be around $100 million - the most expensive opening ceremony in the history of the Olympics.

Tennis great Roger Federer was Switzerland’s flag-bearer while the United States’ choice was Sudan-born 1,500 meter runner Lopez Lomong, a refugee from the Darfur conflict.

That was potentially embarrassing for the host nation given that China has close ties with Sudan, but the U.S. team still received a warm welcome, as did Iraq’s small team.

The biggest cheer, naturally, was reserved for the entrance of the Chinese team, led by their giant basketball superstar Yao Ming, who plays for Houston Rockets in the NBA.

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Tonight, the 2008 Olympic Games begin.

I've been waiting for it for so long a time. I should have wished it to come earlier. But recently I've been busy. I don't have enough for to concern about the Olympic Games. Right now, I just wish it would come later or in a slow speed. It's a strange feeling. Well, whatever I wish, it is coming. It's 7:25 now. 35 minutes later, I hope all of us can watch and enjoy it.