Obama Holds Town Hall in China Nov. 15

See video and transcript of the town hall here.

Obama with APEC leaders in Singapore in local attire

The town hall will be live streamed at WhiteHouse.gov. The town hall will begin at 11:45 pm eastern. From Ben Rhodes:

I think what we expect for the event is that there's an audience of several hundred students, young people, young Chinese. They come from several different universities in the Shanghai area. They were I think largely invited by the departments of those universities, the department heads within those universities. We have also solicited questions through various Internet -- various sources on the Internet, so that the President will be taking questions both from students in the room but he'll also have the opportunity to take -- have questions that came in through the Internet. And we have, again, a number of different ways in which Internet questions have been coming in that the President can then answer. Politico

See a video of China's reaction to Obama's visit here. Full coverage of Obama's visit here.
Obama has arrived in China. From China Daily:

United States President Barack Obama arrived at Shanghai Pudong International Airport and in one step, kicking off his first visit to China.

More importantly, he will begin negotiations with China that will likely take a more cooperative tone than that of his predecessors.
Obama's Air Force One landed in Shanghai at about 11:16 pm in heavy downpour with Chinese Ambassador to the US Zhou Wenzhong greeting him.

His motorcade of black limos then left for Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel at the city's center. The hotel has been sealed off by local police for more than a day.

The 48-year-old is the first US president to visit China within the first year of taking office. He will arrive in Beijing tomorrow afternoon during his four-day visit and meet with President Hu Jintao, top legislator Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The China trip is also part of his first trip to Asia as president. In his wide-ranging speech in Japan on Saturday, Obama said he would welcome, not fear, a robust China as a powerful partner on urgent challenges.

Obama popular with younger people:

Amid piles of paperwork in his simple office on the outskirts of Beijing, a 28-year-old public welfare lawyer pauses to say his job is special because he feels a kinship with the most powerful man in the United States.

"I am young, passionate and dedicated to helping the poor of the community with my knowledge," said Li Songchen, who represents migrant workers at the Beijing Zhicheng Law Firm.

"Barack Obama at my age was doing the same thing."

When he was in his twenties, Obama worked for a church-based community organization on Chicago's far South Side and worked on civil rights cases with a small law firm.

The same drive to support the disadvantaged helps Li tackle challenges on the job and in life.

Li lives on a thin salary and deals with legal cases that often last years and offer few opportunities to win.

"Part of the reasons for Obama's popularity comes from his knowledge of ordinary people through his grassroots and community experience," Li said.

"The more you talk to the people at the bottom, the most disadvantaged people, the wider vision you gain, the better communication skills you acquire," Li said.

Li is among the young Chinese who have gained new perspectives about their responsibilities, and about equality and sacrifice through Obama's stories.

As the first African-American president, at age 48, Obama has made himself approachable to young people with his smiles, and through Internet communication tools including Twitter and Facebook.

"Whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical what gives me the most hope is the next generation: the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change has already made history" Obama said in March 2008. China Daily

Obama on Fire in China

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Ben Rhodes Previews Obama's Trip to Asia

Conversation in Asia will revolve around stopping nukes, economy and energy and climate change, according to Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications. Obama makes a stop in Alaska before heading to Asia. At 6:15 pm eastern, Obama will hold a news conference with Japan's Prime Minister Hatoyama in Tokyo. It will be live audio streamed at WhiteHouse.gov.

See Obama's travel schedule here.

Obama Travels to China in November Then Meets Dalai Lama

Obama is headed to China next month. Obama needs China's help with Iran and North Korea and is looking past China's human rights issues:

The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes soft-pedaling criticism of China's human rights and financial policies as well as backing efforts to elevate China's position in international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund. Obama administration officials have termed the new policy "strategic reassurance," which entails the U.S. government taking steps to convince China that it is not out to contain the emerging Asian power. WaPo

The media is reporting that Obama postponed a meetup with the Dalai Lama who is in D.C. this week but the White House says the meeting wasn't postponed because there wasn't one in the first place:

A senior administration official denied that the Dalai Lama had sought a meeting with Obama in October and "instead he would like to see him in December." He said it was "counter-factual" to assume that a meeting had been postponed. The official briefed a reporter on the condition that his name not be used. WaPo

The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes soft-pedaling criticism of China's human rights and financial policies as well as backing efforts to elevate China's position in international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund. Obama administration officials have termed the new policy "strategic reassurance," which entails the U.S. government taking steps to convince China that it is not out to contain the emerging Asian power. WaPo

Obama wants to try something new for China and Tibet:

U.S. officials also said they are not pulling punches with the Chinese. They have, however, indicated that they want to try something new on Tibet, figuring that the old policy -- of meeting with the Dalai Lama regularly and calling for substantive talks between China and his representatives -- had achieved little. American officials told Tibetan representatives that "this president is not interested in symbolism or photo ops but in deliverables," the Asian diplomat said. "He wants something to come out of his efforts over Tibet, rather than just checking a box."

Talks between China and representatives of the Dalai Lama, who fled China in 1959 after an anti-Chinese uprising, collapsed in 2008. There are signs that they might resume soon. Read it all at WaPo

Obama Speaks on Relations With China

Obama speaks on U.S. China relations at a time when China is concerned about its U.S. investments. Don't they own us now? The U.S. wants China's help with North Korea. This event, held in Washington, is a twice a year event started by the Bush administration, according to Bloomberg.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Treasury Geithner co-chair the dialogue. Clinton and Geither's op-ed on China:

When the United States and China established diplomatic relations 30 years ago, it was far from clear what the future would hold. In 1979, China was still emerging from the ruins of the Cultural Revolution and its gross domestic product stood at a mere $176 billion, a fraction of the U.S. total of $2.5 trillion. Even travel and communication between our two great nations presented a challenge: a few unreliable telephone lines and no direct flights connected us. Today China’s GDP tops four trillion dollars, thousands of emails and cellphone calls cross the Pacific Ocean daily, and by next year there will be 249 direct flights per week between the U.S. and China.

To keep up with these changes that affect our citizens and our planet, we need to update our official ties with Beijing. During their first meeting in April, President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao announced a new dialogue as part of the administration’s efforts to build a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship with Beijing. So this week we will meet together in Washington with two of the highest-ranking officials in the Chinese government, Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, to develop a new framework for U.S.-China relations. Many of our cabinet colleagues will join us in this “Strategic and Economic Dialogue,” along with an equally large number of the most senior leaders of the Chinese government. Why are we doing this with China, and what does it mean for Americans?

Simply put, few global problems can be solved by the U.S. or China alone. And few can be solved without the U.S. and China together. The strength of the global economy, the health of the global environment, the stability of fragile states and the solution to nonproliferation challenges turn in large measure on cooperation between the U.S. and China. While our two-day dialogue will break new ground in combining discussions of both economic and foreign policies, we will be building on the efforts of the past seven U.S. administrations and on the existing tapestry of government-to-government exchanges and cooperation in several dozen different areas. Read more at the WSJ

Transcript of Hillary's remarks here.
Read more on this here.
U.S. Trade rep Ron Kirk talks about trade with China:

Obama's Team Across From China's

This photo of Obama's team across from Hu Jintao's is so interesting. Read background on Obama's meeting with Jintao here. 

Robert Gibbs Press Briefing Jan. 30

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:55 P.M. EST

MR. GIBBS: Happy Friday. How's everyone today? I have my trusty week ahead -- though it's not that detailed, you'll find out. (Laughter.) Saturday, I have. We'll get it out a little bit later. Again, I apologize, I'm still a little under the weather.

Let me give you a couple of quick announcements and give you a better answer to a question that was asked yesterday that I didn't have any information on, and should have.

First of all, Director Blair conducted his first PDB this morning with the President. So we're glad to -- glad that he's been confirmed and glad to have him onboard. The Obama administration today announced an emergency contribution of more than $20 million to relief efforts in Gaza, as part of the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund. That was announced by Senator Mitchell in the region this morning.

The President has called and talked to President Hu Jintao of China, and we will have some more information and a readout on that a little later this afternoon.

And then lastly, let me go through just quickly the DTV question from yesterday, which as I said, I should have been better prepared for.

I think you all have copies of letters that were sent from the transition to both Houses of Congress in January. The transition, obviously, in an agency -- in the agency review process determined what it believed to be shortfalls in planning for the DTV transition. For instance, it found that the coupon program for converters had 3.3 million requests sitting on a waiting list, and that the FCC told Congress that the call center that it had established could not handle the rate of incoming calls.

The transition asked that Congress delay the February 17th transition. The House -- I'm sorry, the Senate voted on that last week and passed that delay. The Senate took -- I mean, sorry, I'm confused today -- the Senate voted on that, the House took the bill up under a suspension of the rules requiring two-thirds of those present supporting the bill. The bill passed with an overwhelming majority, but not with the necessary two-thirds. The Senate last night took the bill up again and passed it. I'm told that the House will vote next week. We anticipate that the House will pass a delay on DTV to June 12th. If that gets to the President's desk, and when that happens, the President will sign that delay into law so that we might undergo a little bit better planning process to ensure no interruption for people with televisions.

And with that, let's get going.

Yes, ma'am.

Q Thanks, Robert. A couple questions on the economy. Can you explain what the President's strategy will be in the coming days to all these senators on the stimulus package? What kind of meetings does he have planned? Does he plan any sort of different-looking strategy than he did with the House, for whatever reason? And then secondly, I want to clarify, or see if you can clarify, something that Vice President Biden said in an interview yesterday. He said that any new money for the financial industry-type bailout would not be requested until all the $350 billion has been spent. Is that accurate?

MR. GIBBS: I don't remember that part of the transcript but let me -- let me check on that. Obviously -- I hate to do this, I think both of these answers are largely going to hedge toward answers that I gave yesterday to a couple of these questions.

As I said, the President will continue to reach out to Democrats and Republicans and seek ideas on ways to improve or strengthen the package if those ideas are out there. I said he didn't forestall the idea or close the door on sitting down with leaders in order to do that, from both parties.

You know, the President will continue to do whatever is possible to get this bill going and to get it moved quickly to his desk.

Q Does he have anything on the schedule, in terms of calls he's making?

MR. GIBBS: I don't have anything for next week, but I will -- let me see what there is. I know the President will work next week on an economic stimulus bill. And as I've done here several days this week, you know, again we've got more statistics that remind us just how important it is to get something that stimulates the economy quickly to the President's desk so that we can get relief to the American people.

The economy shrank at its fastest pace since 1982, according to statistics released just today. In addition, those statistics demonstrated that consumer spending was down I think for the second quarter. Sales of new homes -- these were figures released yesterday -- were their worst since the 1960s. More companies announced mass layoffs. And Ford Motor Company reported a huge loss in their quarterly earnings.

Again, I think all of these demonstrate the need for Congress and the President to work together to get something done as quickly as possible for the American people.
...
Q There have been new revelations that call into question the ability of the FDA to keep our nation's food supply safe with the salmonella epidemic. More than 500 people are sick, more than half of them are children, eight people have died. On the campaign trail last year President Obama said as the parent of two young daughters, "There are few issues more important to me than ensuring the safety of the food that our children consume."

So what are you guys doing about this?

MR. GIBBS: Well, obviously we've read reports, I think on the AP wire today, about trouble at FDA last year. We've certainly read reports -- and I think the Justice Department is looking into the business practices of the company in Georgia. And I know the President hopes in the next few days to announce a pick for commissioner at FDA to address all of what you said.

I think the revelations have no doubt been alarming, that whether it was our own regulatory system or a company that repeatedly found salmonella in its own testing would continue to ship out that product is beyond disturbing for millions of parents. The President, like I said, in the coming days will have a new commissioner at FDA and hopefully we'll be able to announce also picks at things like the Consumer Product Safety Commission and places like that to put in place a stricter regulatory structure to ensure that the type of thing that happened in this case doesn't happen again.

Yes.

Q Senator Judd Gregg said he's under consideration for Commerce Secretary. Can you talk a little bit about that?

MR. GIBBS: You know, I -- let me give largely the answer I gave to some of you yesterday, which is -- and some of you heard my ranting on this during the transition -- I'm not going to get into the name-game or the final four of picks for this job or that.

I talked to the President specifically about a decision on the next Commerce Secretary, and the last time I talked to him this morning a final decision had not been made. I know that's something that he hopes to make a decision on and announce shortly. But until the President tells me to make a personnel announcement from this podium, I'll refrain from getting into individual names on that.

Chip.
There's so much more here.