Obama in China: Preserving the Rebalance

Event Information

This November, after focusing on foreign policy concerns around the globe and congressional midterm elections at home, President Barack Obama will travel to Beijing to attend the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in hopes of preserving and enhancing one of his key foreign policy achievements—the rebalance to Asia. Obama’s trip to China will be his first since 2009, and in those intervening five years the bilateral relationship has become increasingly complicated, with tensions spanning a wide range of issues from maritime disputes to cybersecurity to the pace of China’s economic reforms. While both countries agree that a “New Type of Great Power Relations" is needed, it is still not clear what such a relationship entails. President Obama’s trip to China will offer a critical opportunity to shape the U.S.-China relationship and seize on the cooperative spirit of the APEC meeting to strengthen the rebalance to Asia.

On Novemver 5, the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution hosted a full-day conference with two keynote addresses and four panels about the economic, environmental, political, and security implications of President Obama’s trip to China for the 2014 APEC summit and his interactions with President Xi Jinping.

Video

• Introductory Remarks and Morning Keynote
• The State of China’s Economy and Free Trade in the Asia-Pacific
• U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change and the Environment
• Obama in China: Afternoon Keynote Address
• The Domestic Issues and Politics Influencing Obama-Xi Relations
• The Evolving Security Climate in Asia

Audio

• Obama in China: Preserving the Rebalance

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20141105_obama_china_transcript
• 20141105_Donilon_Brookings_Keynote_Prepared_for_Delivery