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      To Beat Trump, Nikki Haley Is Trying to Speak to All Sides of a Fractured G.O.P.

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      Her campaign will test what political strategists and observers of her rise in politics have said is among her greatest political skills: an ability to massage her message to the moment.To beat former President Donald J. Trump in the coming months, Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, must stitch together a coalition of Republicans: Mr. Trump’s most faithful supporters, voters who like his policies but who have grown weary of him personally, and the smaller but still vocal contingent who abhor him entirely.It’s a challenge that will test what political strategists and those who have observed Ms. Haley’s ascent from her first underdog win in South Carolina have said is among her greatest skills as a candidate: an ability to calibrate her message to the moment.Since announcing her bid in February, she has campaigned much like an old guard Republican: hawkish on foreign policy, supportive of legal immigration reform and staunchly in favor of the international alliances that Mr. Trump questioned during his administration. She has also sounded a lot like the former president, whose “America First” rhetoric she echoed while serving as one of his diplomats, with aggressive calls to send the U.S. military into Mexico and remarks about the need to rid schools and the military of perceived left-wing influences on hot-button cultural issues like race and transgender rights.Other than how she has navigated Mr. Trump himself, perhaps no issue best exemplifies Ms. Haley’s approach than abortion. She backed harsh restrictions on the procedure as governor of South Carolina and has called herself “unapologetically pro-life” on the trail, but she has struck a flexible tone as her party has flailed in countering the electoral backlash the conservative majority on the Supreme Court triggered when it overturned Roe v. Wade. Her appeals for “consensus” have been among the most common reasons cited for her upward climb in the polls in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and a former aide to Mitt Romney who has known Ms. Haley since she was a state lawmaker first running for governor, said she “has always been a pragmatic conservative.” “She is comfortable in her own skin, and she is going to win or lose based on her own values and beliefs,” he said. Still, the difficulty for her, as for all the candidates attempting to emerge as a Trump alternative, is that “what a conservative is has been redefined by Trump himself,” he said.Mr. Trump’s lead over the field is dominant nationally and in every early state polled, and it remains uncertain that Ms. Haley could peel away enough of his faithful, no matter her approach, to come out on top. And what has so far propelled her could also become a liability, should she alienate one or more faction. Her rivals, including Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have sought to portray her as insufficiently conservative and as someone who panders to Democrats. Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, labeled her a “snake oil salesman” who “will say whatever she needs to say to get power.”Her campaign officials and surrogates argue her politics have stayed the same, with the country and the world changing around her. “Nikki has always been a tough, anti-establishment conservative,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for Ms. Haley.Ms. Haley’s attempt to thread the needle on abortion is already being tested, as she has faced skepticism from Iowa’s evangelical community, a critical voting bloc. Addressing a conservative Christian audience in Iowa, Ms. Haley said she would have signed a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy as governor.Democrats seized on Ms. Haley’s remarks as proof that, despite her tone, she is no moderate on the issue. The influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, who previously indicated that clear-cut abortion opposition would be the driving factor for his support, went on to endorse Mr. DeSantis. But just days earlier, Ms. Haley had received a seemingly impromptu endorsement from Marlys Popma, the former head of the state Republican Party and one of Iowa’s most prominent anti-abortion activists — who indicated she was comfortable with Ms. Haley’s stance.Here are four other issues on which Ms. Haley has shifted, evolved or otherwise tempered her positions.Immigration and refugeesMs. Haley first rose in politics on the deep red wave of the Tea Party — and its anti-immigrant sentiment. As governor, she signed some of the harshest immigration laws in the country in 2011, requiring law enforcement officers to ask certain people’s immigration status and businesses to verify that their workers were in the country legally.But Ms. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, largely refrained from using dehumanizing language against immigrants and stuck to the consistent message that immigration was critical to the nation, as long as it was done legally. Still, two pivotal events prompted her to take a sharp turn on the issue: the deadly terror attack in Paris in 2015, and the rise of Mr. Trump.After the attack, Ms. Haley, who was then governor, went from supporting the efforts of faith groups to resettle refugees in South Carolina to aggressively fighting the Obama administration on the admission of Syrians fleeing violence, citing concerns over the vetting process.Before Mr. Trump’s election in 2016, she called his proposal to bar Muslims from traveling to the United States “absolutely un-American.” As Mr. Trump’s U.N. ambassador, she defended his order to temporarily block all refugees and people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the U. S., as well as his decision to cut American funding to Palestinian refugees.On the trail, she has expressed support for expediting legal immigration avenues, for aiding escape from persecution and for improving the ways people can migrate, calling for a system based on merit and business needs, rather than quotas. But with a higher and more consistent frequency, she echoes Mr. Trump. She has promised to build a wall, send immigrants back and reinstitute some of Mr. Trump’s harshest immigration and asylum policies.Tough talk on ChinaMs. Haley seizes every opportunity to flex her foreign policy credentials and has stood out among her rivals for her steadfast support of Israel and Ukraine.A trickier spot has been her hawkish stance on China. Ms. Haley’s stump speeches are laden with warnings that China is outpacing the United States in shipbuilding, hacking American infrastructure and developing “neuro-strike weapons,” which she says can be used to “disrupt brain activity” of military commanders and civilians.But as governor of South Carolina, she lauded and welcomed Chinese companies that wanted to contribute to the state’s economy, helping those entities expand or open new operations. Those moves have opened her to attacks from Mr. DeSantis and other opponents, and she and Mr. DeSantis have lobbed false or misleading claims involving China at each other in recent weeks as the race for second place has tightened.Explaining her position on the campaign trail, Ms. Haley has argued that her administration’s investments in Chinese companies accounted for a fraction of the jobs and projects spurred during her tenure, and that she had not been aware of the dangers China posed until she became U.N. ambassador. The threat of China has also evolved, she adds.“There is not another governor in this race that hasn’t worked to recruit Chinese companies,” she said last month at a chapel in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Every governor has done the same thing, just like every one of you has Chinese products in your home.”Identity politicsFew moments have defined Ms. Haley more in the public view than when she signed legislation to take down the Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina State House, after a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015, including a state senator. On the trail, she powerfully recalls the experience, casting herself as a new generational leader capable of bridging divides.But the feat also captures her calibration: As she ran for election in 2010 and then re-election in 2014, she rejected talk of removing the flag, a thorny issue in a state where Confederate heritage groups were a major political force. After the 2015 attack rattled South Carolina, Ms. Haley seized on the newfound political will among state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.Ms. Haley has also wielded her own identity to significant effect. Much as she invokes her high heels to point out that she is the only woman in the race, she has used her family background to call for staunch immigration measures and her election as the first woman of color to lead South Carolina to argue that America is neither “rotten” nor “racist.”Fighting the conservative cultural battles that have animated the G.O.P. base in recent years has not been central to her presidential campaign, but Ms. Haley has echoed Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump in some of her language criticizing gender and racial diversity initiatives in boardrooms and classrooms. Her stump speech incorporates nods to the growing wave of anti-trans legislation, and her call to end “gender pronoun classes in the military” remains one of her most reliable applause lines on the trail. At her education policy rollout in September, she joined a conservative political group known for promoting book bans, another cause adopted by many on the far right.But as new polling has shown that the battle against “wokeness” has lost some of its political potency, her more recent remarks about education have tended to focus on support for school choice programs, which allow public money to be directed to private and religious schools, and tackling children’s low test scores in core subjects like reading and math.Donald J. TrumpIn the 2024 race, perhaps Ms. Haley’s most careful approach has been toward Mr. Trump, whose support among Republicans remains significant.Not long after the assault on the U.S. Capitol, Ms. Haley said Mr. Trump had “lost any sort of political viability.” But she later went on to say that the party needed the former president and suggested that she would not jump into the 2024 presidential race if Mr. Trump decided to run. She then became the first to challenge him for the nomination — a move the Trump campaign highlighted in an email to supporters as one of her “flip flops” in the 2024 race.In a January interview with the Fox News host Bret Baier, Ms. Haley explained her change of heart, saying conditions at the border, inflation and crime, and the country’s approach to foreign policy had worsened since she initially indicated she would stay out of the running. “I think we need a young generation to come in to step up and really start fixing things,” she said.On the trail, she has alternated between criticism and praise of Mr. Trump. On the one hand, she has lauded him for his border policies. At the first presidential debates in August, she was among six candidates who raised their hands to indicate they would support the former president as their party’s nominee, even if he were convicted of a felony. But she also has called Mr. Trump “thin-skinned and easily distracted” — among her sharpest critiques — and more recently has been describing him as a force of “drama and chaos” that the country cannot afford. More

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      Taiwan’s Opposition Splits After Collapse of Unity Bid

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      The split over a proposed joint ticket bolsters the governing party candidate’s chances in the coming presidential election. That won’t please Beijing.For weeks, Taiwan’s two main opposition parties were edging toward a coalition, in a bid to unseat the island democracy’s governing party in the coming presidential election, an outcome that Beijing would welcome. The election, one elder statesman from Taiwan’s opposition said, was a choice between war and peace.This week, though, the two parties — which both argue that they are better able to ensure peace with China — chose in spectacular fashion to go to war against each other. An incipient deal for a joint presidential ticket between the long-established Nationalist Party and the upstart Taiwan People’s Party unraveled with the speed, melodrama and lingering vitriol of a celebrity wedding gone wrong.A meeting that was opened to journalists on Thursday seemed to have been meant as a show of good will within the opposition. But it featured sniping between rival spokesmen, a long-winded tribute to the spirit of Thanksgiving by Terry Gou — a magnate turned politician trying to cajole the opposition toward unity — and mutual accusations of bad faith between the two presidential candidates who had been trying to strike a deal: Hou Yu-ih of the Nationalist Party and Ko Wen-je, the founder of the Taiwan People’s Party.Mr. Gou tried to break the icy tensions at one point by saying that he needed a bathroom break.“I don’t want a silent ending on this Thanksgiving Day,” he later told journalists after Mr. Hou and his two allies had left the stage. “But unfortunately it looks like it will be a silent ending.”Friday was the deadline for registering for Taiwan’s election, which will be held on Jan. 13, and by noon both Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko had officially registered as presidential candidates, confirming that there would be no unity ticket. Mr. Gou, who had also thrown his hat in the ring, withdrew from the race.Taiwan’s young, vigorous democratic politics has often included some raucous drama. Yet even experienced observers of the Taiwanese scene have been agog by this week, and baffled as to why the opposition parties would stage such a public rupture over who would be the presidential candidate on a unity ticket, and who would accept the vice presidential nomination.“It really defies theories of coalition building,” Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Chengchi University in Taipei, said of the week’s bickering. “How do you tell undecided voters ‘still vote for me’ after having a very publicly messy, willfully uninformed debate about who ought to be first and who ought to be second?”The collapse of the proposed opposition pact could have consequences rippling beyond Taiwan, affecting the tense balance between Beijing — which claims the self-governing island as its own — and Washington over the future status of the island.The situation also makes it more likely that Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate for the governing Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., will win the election — a result sure to displease Chinese Communist Party leaders.Mr. Lai’s party asserts Taiwan’s distinctive identity and claims to nationhood, and has become closer to the United States. China’s leaders could respond to a victory for him by escalating menacing military activities around Taiwan, which sits roughly 100 miles off the Chinese coast.A victory for the Nationalists could reopen communication with China that mostly froze shortly after Tsai Ing-wen from the Democratic Progressive Party was elected president in 2016. And a third successive loss for the Nationalists, who favor closer ties and negotiations with Beijing, could undercut Chinese confidence that they remain a viable force.Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice president, and a candidate from the Democratic Progressive Party. A split between Mr. Hou and Ko Wen-je of Taiwan People’s Party may benefit his campaign.I-Hwa Cheng/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTaiwan’s first-past-the-post system for electing its president awards victory to the candidate with the highest raw percentage of votes. Mr. Lai has led in polls for months, but his projected share of the vote has sat below 40 percent in many surveys, meaning that the opposition could claw past his lead if it coalesced behind a single candidate. Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko for months sat around the mid- to high 20s in polls, suggesting that it could be hard for either to overtake Mr. Lai unless the other candidate stepped aside.“This may scare off moderate voters who might have been into voting for a joint ticket for the sake of blocking the D.P.P.,” Mr. Nachman said of the falling out between the opposition parties. “Now those moderate voters will look at this team in a different light.”For now, many Taiwanese people seem absorbed — sometimes gleeful, sometimes anguished — by the spectacle of recent days. “Wave Makers,” a recent Netflix drama series, showed Taiwanese electoral politics as a noble, if sometimes cutthroat, affair. This week was more like the political satire “Veep.”Last weekend, the Nationalist Party and Taiwan People’s Party appeared poised to settle on a unity ticket, with each agreeing to decide on their choice of joint presidential nominee — Mr. Hou or Mr. Ko — by examining electoral polls to determine who had the strongest shot at winning.But teams of statistical experts put forward by each party could not agree on what polls to use and what to make of the results, and the parties became locked in days of bickering over the numbers and their implications. At news conferences, rival spokespeople brandished printouts of opinion poll results and struggled to explain complex statistical concepts.The real issue was which leader would claim the presidential nominee spot, and the quarrel exposed deep wariness between the Nationalists — a party with a history of over a century that is also known as the Kuomintang, or K.M.T. — and the Taiwan People’s Party, which Mr. Ko, a surgeon and former mayor of Taipei, founded in 2019.“The K.M.T., as the grand old party, could never make way for an upstart party, so structurally, it was very difficult for them to work out how to work together,” said Brian Hioe, a founding editor of New Bloom, a Taiwanese magazine that takes a critical view of mainstream politics. On the other hand, Mr. Hioe added, “Ko Wen-je’s party has the need to differentiate itself from the K.M.T. — to show that it’s independent and different — and so working with the K.M.T. would be seen by many of his party membership as a betrayal.”A supporter of Kuomintang, or the long-established Nationalist Party, holding a flag outside the Central Election Commission in Taipei on Friday.Annabelle Chih/Getty ImagesMa Ying-jeou, the Nationalist president of Taiwan from 2008 to 2016, stepped in to try to broker an agreement between his party and Mr. Ko. Hopes rose on Thursday when Mr. Hou announced that he would be waiting at Mr. Ma’s office to hold negotiations with Mr. Ko.But it quickly became clear that Mr. Ko and Mr. Hou remained divided. Mr. Ko refused to go to Mr. Ma’s office, and insisted on talks at another location. Mr. Hou stayed put in Mr. Ma’s office for hours, waiting for Mr. Ko to give way. Eventually, Mr. Hou agreed to meet at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Taipei, and party functionaries announced with solemn specificity that the talks would happen in Room 2538.Dozens of journalists converged on the hotel, waiting for a possible announcement. Expectations rose when Mr. Hou entered a conference room where the journalists and live-feed cameras waited. But he sat with a fixed smile for about 20 minutes before Mr. Ko arrived, glowering. Mr. Gou, the magnate, opened proceedings with his tribute to Thanksgiving and calls for unity, recalling his wedding ceremony in the same hotel. But it soon became clear that Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko were no closer.On Friday, Taiwanese people had shared images online and quips ridiculing the opposition’s public feuding. Photographs of Room 2538, a suite at the Grand Hyatt, circulated on the internet. Some likened the spectacle to “The Break-up Ring,” a popular Taiwanese television show that featured quarreling couples and their in-laws airing their grievances on camera.Some drew a more somber conclusion: that dysfunction on the opposition side left Taiwan’s democracy weaker.“In a healthy democracy, No. 2 and No. 3 will collaborate to challenge No. 1,” said Wu Tzu-chia, the chairman of My Formosa, an online magazine. “This should be a very rigorous process, but in Taiwan, it’s become very crude, like buying meat and vegetables in the marketplace.” More

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      in US Politics

      Xi Jinping: ‘not an option’ for US and China to turn backs on each other – live

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      “The China-US relationship, which is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, should be perceived and envisioned in a broad context of the accelerating global transformations,” Xi Jinping told Joe Biden.“China-US relationship has never been smooth sailing over the past 50 years or more and it always faces problems of one kind or another. Yet it has kept moving forward amid twists and turns.“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option …“Planet earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed and one country’s success is an opportunity for the other,” Xi added.Singer Gwen Stefani is slated to be the headline performer at Joe Biden’s APEC reception this evening, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. In January, the pop songstress fell into hot water in January she told an Allure editor, ‘My God, I’m Japanese and I didn’t know it,’” in an interview.Paul Osaki, executive director of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, told the Chronicle:
      I hope her appearance at APEC is not related to her Harujuku Girls era or feelings about being Japanese. If they want representation of the Japanese culture at the reception, there are several Japanese cultural performing arts groups that are more authentic, not stereotypical and of actual Japanese ancestry.”
      Read the rest of the Chronicle’s coverage here.The lead-up to Xi Jinping’s first visit to the US since 2017 has been filled with meticulous planning including San Francisco encampment cleanups and pre-determined camera angles to capture the meeting of the two heads of state and specific seating arrangements, NBC News reports.
      “There is no detail too small,” Kurt Campbell, the White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, told the outlet.
      Any meeting between two heads of state involves a degree of pomp and circumstance, but President Joe Biden’s long-awaited sit-down with Xi on Wednesday is the product of a painstaking process to accommodate China’s many requests. The behind-the-scenes effort is a sign of Beijing’s anxiety over the optics that could result from Xi’s first visit to the U.S. in six years.
      Overall, China is looking for Xi’s trip to California to be seen as a “grand visit,” officials said.
      Read more about the visit preparation here:ABC’s senior White House correspondent Selina Wang reports that following Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s opening remarks, she asked Xi in Mandarin: “Do you trust Biden?”
      He took out his translation earpiece to hear my question, looked at me, but didn’t respond,” Wang tweeted.
      Here is some color from the New York Times on the lush Filoli estate where Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are meeting (the location was largely kept a secret until a day before the bilateral):The Filoli estate, a grand house and garden on 654 acres of rolling green grounds along the California coast, has been a supporting character in the 1980s television drama “Dynasty” and the 2001 romantic comedy “The Wedding Planner.” It has been the venue for top-dollar nuptials of Facebook executives, and the public can tour the gardens.Just not on Wednesday.Top aides to President Biden have worked with Chinese officials for weeks to ensure that this manicured setting would be the perfect backdrop to host a diplomatic summit between Mr. Biden and President Xi Jinping of China — two men who share a deep skepticism of each other, but also a mutual belief that their countries must avoid allowing their diplomatic and military interactions to deteriorate from fierce competition into outright conflict…The site was appealing for a few reasons. It is set among the hills, one of the more isolated spots in a densely populated corner of California. The White House kept the location of the meeting secret until a day before, presumably to keep protesters from surrounding the venue. None were visible at the gates on Wednesday morning as Mr. Biden’s motorcade approached the locale, but some could be seen along the route from San Francisco.Filoli is a giant estate amid some of the most expensive real estate in the country, built in the early 20th century by a family that made its fortune in the California gold boom and wanted a retreat not far from San Francisco. William Bowers Bourn II, the original owner of the home, decided on the name “Filoli” by mixing together the first few letters of his personal motto: “Fight for a just cause. Love your Fellow Man. Live a Good Life.”Here are images coming through the newswires of Joe Biden greeting Xi Jinping in San Francisco in their first face-to-face meeting in a year: Joe Biden has welcomed Xi Jinping to San Francisco where the two leaders are meeting face-to-face for the first time in a year.As Xi stepped out of his bulletproof Hongqi sedan, Biden greeted the smiling Chinese president with a handshake and said: “Welcome.”The two then proceeded to pose briefly for photos before heading into their meeting hall where they were greeted by US officials including the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, the US’s special climate envoy, John Kerry, and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.Addressing Xi, Biden said:
      Mr President, we’ve known each other for a long time. We haven’t always agreed which [does] not surprise anyone but our meetings have always been candid, straightforward and useful … I value our conversation because I think it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader with no misconceptions or miscommunication …
      We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict. And we also have to manage it responsibly … That’s what the United States wants and what we intend to do … I also believe it’s what the world wants for both of us …
      We also have the responsibility to our people and the world to work together when we see it in our interest to do so. Critical global challenges we face from climate change to counter narcotics to artificial intelligence demand our joint efforts.”
      Addressing Biden, Xi said:
      The China-US relationship, which is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, should be perceived and envisioned in a broad context of the accelerating global transformations … It should develop in a way that benefits our two peoples and fulfils our responsibility for human progress.
      The China-US relationship has never been smooth sailing over the past 50 years or more and it always faces problems of one kind or another. Yet it has kept moving forward amid twists and turns. For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option …
      Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed … As long as [China and the US] respect each other, coexist in peace and pursue win-win cooperation, they will be fully capable of rising above differences and find the right way for the two major countries to get along with each other.”
      “The China-US relationship, which is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, should be perceived and envisioned in a broad context of the accelerating global transformations,” Xi Jinping told Joe Biden.“China-US relationship has never been smooth sailing over the past 50 years or more and it always faces problems of one kind or another. Yet it has kept moving forward amid twists and turns.“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option …“Planet earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed and one country’s success is an opportunity for the other,” Xi added.“There’s no substitute to face-to-face discussions,” Joe Biden told Xi Jinping.“Mr. President, we have known each other for a long time. We haven’t always agreed … but our meetings have always been candid, straightforward and useful,” Biden said.“We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict. And we also have to manage it responsibly … and work together when we see it in our interest to do so,” he continued.He went on to mention “critical global challenges” including climate change. narcotics and artificial intelligence that the US seeks to address with China.Here is video of the moment Joe Biden greeted Xi Jinping in their first face-to-face meeting in a year: Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have made their way into the meeting hall.They were greeted by officials including the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, the US special climate envoy, John Kerry, as well as the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.Xi Jinping has arrived ahead of his bilateral meeting with Joe Biden.He stepped out of his car and shook hands briefly with Biden before posing for photos.Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are expected to meet shortly.Stay tuned as we bring you a live feed of their official greeting.The San Francisco mayor, London Breed, shared her support for Joe Biden’s initiative to commit more federal funding to curtailing drug trafficking and supporting treatment, in light of the agreement between Biden and Xi aimed at the importation of fentanyl into the US.From London Breed’s X account:Delegates from multiple countries were blocked by protesters from entering Wednesday’s summit, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing protesters.Delegates from Thailand, China, and the Philippines were reportedly prevented from accessing the APEC conference, with protesters preventing attendees by forming a blockade.Protesters also blocked a motorcade of 10 vehicles, with police officers in riot gear standing by.Protesters tried to block people from entering the Apec summit in downtown San Francisco on Wednesday morning, with demonstrators heckling participants and blocking traffic near the gathering.The protest was organized by the No to Apec Coalition, which is made up of more than a hundred grassroot groups and says it “opposes Apec as a forum for corporations and institutions to push so-called ‘free trade’ to exploit their workers and put the benefits of corporations over the rights of nations and peoples.”Demonstrators numbered in the hundreds, CBS Bay Area reported.“Biden, Biden telling lies, you don’t care if the planet dies, some demonstrators chanted, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.The San Francisco city blocks where the summit is being held have seen multiple protests ahead of the meeting.On Tuesday, thousands gathered in the same area to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, denounce Israel’s invasion, and deplore the rising death toll.And on Sunday, thousands of demonstrators protesting various causes, including corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war, joined forces in a march.Ahead of the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping today in San Francisco, the European Council on Foreign Relations has released the following results from a new global opinion poll conducted in 21 countries:
      There is widespread pessimism among citizens of the west. 47% of respondents in the United States are pessimistic about the future of their country.
      In contrast, in emerging and rising powers (including China) optimism prevails. Sixty-nine per cent of Chinese respondents are optimistic about their country, and this feeling was also evidenced among 86% of those surveyed in India, 74% in Indonesia and 54% in Russia.
      Chinese strength, globally, is most evidenced on economic matters. When asked if they feel closer to the US or China on trade, majorities in Russia (74%), Saudi Arabia (60%), South Africa (60%), Indonesia (53%) and Turkey (50%) selected China. Majorities in Saudi Arabia (64%), South Africa (58%), Brazil (52%), and Turkey (52%) also expressed acceptance for five types of Chinese economic presence in their countries, including ownership of sports teams, newspapers, tech companies and infrastructure.
      US leadership on the global stage is still important. If forced to choose, respondents almost everywhere in ECFR’s survey stated that they would prefer to be part of an American bloc rather than cooperating with China and its partners. This was the majority view in South Korea (82%), India (80%), Brazil (66%), South Africa (54%), Turkey (51%) and Saudi Arabia (50%).
      Texas’s Republican representative Troy Nehls has made a comment about the Chinese flags lining the streets of San Francisco ahead of Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s meeting today, saying:
      “Chinese flags line the streets of Beijing to welcome President Xi Jinping.
      Just kidding. This is San Francisco.”
      The GOP has tweeted the following ahead of Joe Biden’s meeting with Xi Jinping later today, citing the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic in February:
      “Just this year, China was caught floating a spy balloon across the continental United States. Now Biden is welcoming Xi Jinping, President of China, to California with open arms.” More

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      in Elections

      Global Markets Cheer on Better Than Expected Inflation Data

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      A better-than-expected Consumer Price Index report triggered a big surge in stocks and bonds, as investors bet that interest rates will begin to fall.Upbeat investors see Tuesday’s inflation data as a possible turning point in the Fed’s battle against soaring prices.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesGood news for global markets Yesterday’s impressive rally in U.S. stocks and bonds has gone worldwide this morning, as investors see central banks making gains in their fight against inflation. Adding to the good news was a breakthrough in the House last night that could avert a government shutdown.S&P 500 futures signal further gains at the opening bell. The question now is whether this represents a false dawn on inflation, or the start of a durable decline in rising costs — and interest rates.Here’s what’s exciting investors: Yesterday’s cooler-than-expected Consumer Price Index data has shifted discussion in the markets from potential interest rate hikes to cuts, and what that might mean for stocks. President Biden, whose poll ratings have been hurt by inflation, also cheered the numbers.Other promising data points came out this morning. Inflation in Britain fell to its lowest level in two years. And consumer spending and industrial output in China rebounded last month, a hopeful sign for the world’s No. 2 economy.Market optimists have moved up their bets on rate cuts. Futures markets this morning pointed to the Fed starting to lower borrowing costs by May, sooner than previous estimates of closer to the end of 2024.Less aggressive is Mohit Kumar, the chief financial economist at Jefferies, who wrote today that big rate cuts would begin after the presidential election next year. Jefferies predicts the Fed’s prime lending rate going to 3 percent by the end of 2025 from its current level of 5.25 to 5.5 percent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      in US Politics

      China and US pledge to fight climate crisis ahead of Xi-Biden summit

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      China and the United States have pledged to work together more closely to fight global warming, declaring the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges of our time”, hours before a key meeting in San Francisco between Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.The announcement further fuels hopes the two nations can mend relations following years of turmoil over issues including trade, human rights and the future of Taiwan.In a joint statement following climate talks in the US, they pledged to make a success of a crucial UN climate summit starting at the end of this month in Dubai.And they recommitted to the 2015 Paris climate accord goals of holding global warming to “well below” 2C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5C.“The United States and China recognise that the climate crisis has increasingly affected countries around the world,” the statement said. “They will work together … to rise up to one of the greatest challenges of our time for present and future generations of humankind.”US and Chinese climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua met this month at the Sunnylands resort in California in a bid to restart stalled cooperation.Experts agree that keeping the Paris goals in reach will require an enormous collective effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions this decade.Xi began his first visit to the US in six years on Tuesday. He is due to meet Biden at an undisclosed location in San Francisco on Wednesday morning and then attend the annual summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.Xi’s summit with the US president will be the first face-to-face meeting between the US and Chinese leaders in a year and has been billed by US officials as an opportunity to reduce friction in what many see as the world’s most dangerous rivalry.Xi waved from atop a passenger staircase attached to his Air China plane and then descended to meet US officials waiting on the tarmac, including treasury secretary Janet Yellen and US ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns.He then got into his Chinese Hongqi, or “Red Flag”, limousine and departed the airport for the city, where demonstrations are expected both supporting and protesting against his visit.Less than two hours earlier, US secretary of state Antony Blinken addressed ministers of the 21-member Apec and stressed the US believed in “a region where economies are free to choose their own path … where goods, ideas, people, flow lawfully and freely”.Blinken did not mention China in his remarks, but his language echoed US rhetoric in recent years in which Washington has accused Beijing of bullying smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific and trying to undermine what the US and its allies call the existing “rules-based” order.US trade representative Katherine Tai, who with Blinken opened the Apec ministerial session, said the San Francisco meeting came at a time of “great uncertainty and challenges” for the region. She noted increasing geopolitical tensions, fragile supply chains and a worsening climate crisis.Earlier, Biden said his goal in his talks with Xi would be to improve the relationship with China after a period of strained ties. He said he would seek to resume normal communications between the two superpowers, including military-to-military contacts.White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Biden and Xi would also talk about the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza as well as US efforts to support Ukraine.Democratic senator Ben Cardin wrote to Biden to push for immediate freedom for Mark Swidan, Kai Li and David Lin, whom the US government has classified as wrongfully detained in China. Republicans and other Democrats have also called for their release.“With the holiday season approaching, and the opportunity to start the new year on a more positive note in bilateral US-China relationships, I implore you to secure commitments from president Xi to release these Americans immediately,” Cardin wrote.Cardin also asked for the release and safety of US-based journalists’ family members whom he said are missing, jailed or detained in China due to their connection to the journalists.Economic issues will also be high on the agenda.Biden said the US does not want to decouple from China but wants to change the economic relationship for the better. His administration has made a push to “de-risk” some critical US supply chains from China as the two countries’ economic and military competition has grown.But it has been careful to assure countries in the region, including China, that the US does not seek complete economic separation, a notion that has fueled concerns among Washington’s partners and allies of a superpower showdown that would upend the global economy.The Chinese severed military-to-military contacts with the US after then House of Representative speaker Nancy Pelosi visited democratically governed but Chinese-claimed Taiwan in August 2022.Restoring the contacts is a top US goal to avoid miscalculations between the two militaries.Several hundred mostly pro-China demonstrators carrying Chinese flags gathered outside the Chinese delegation’s hotel ahead of Xi’s arrival in the US.Larger protests, including by rights groups critical of Xi’s policies in Tibet, Hong Kong and toward Muslim Uyghurs, are expected to gather near the summit venue on Wednesday.As Biden arrived in San Francisco, dueling demonstrators greeted his motorcade from the airport. Some waved Chinese flags and held banners calling for “kindly” and “warm” US-Sino ties. Others held signs condemning the Chinese Communist party.With Reuters and Agence France-Presse More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s Deportation Plans for Immigrants

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      More from our inbox:Shocked by Trump’s Vow to Root Out ‘Vermin’Women in China, Loath to Turn Back the ClockBillionaires, Invest in EarthDonald Trump quiere reimponer una política de la era de la COVID-19 de rechazar las solicitudes de asilo: esta vez basando ese rechazo en afirmaciones de que los migrantes son portadores de otras enfermedades infecciosas, como la tuberculosis.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump’s ’25 Immigration Plan: Giant Camps, Mass Deportation” (front page, Nov. 12):After choking on my coffee reading this excellent in-depth piece, I contemplated the America we will live in if these ambitious and aggressive ideas bear fruit.Do the architects of this plan really believe we will have a stronger, safer and more prosperous country by setting up giant immigrant camps and carrying out mass deportations?I am descended from “white” privilege and members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. My family has grown stronger in recent years by the blending of ethnic, cultural and religious origins through marriage and adoption — with Indonesian, Malaysian, Algerian, Romanian, Iranian and Danish heritages combined with Scot Irish and English ones.We have family members who are Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, atheist and agnostic as well as Episcopalian, Quaker and Catholic.The reality is that our economy and society thrive because of our diversity. For that reason, my license plate is framed with the slogan “Make America Great, Welcome Immigrants.”Cynthia MackieSilver Spring, Md.To the Editor:Stating that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” Donald Trump has offered a vision for another term that includes immediate mass deportations, ending DACA, an even more restrictive Muslim ban, relegating migrants to huge tent cities in Texas and more.I read this with the same dread I felt when articles were written about the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade. Many people thought, “Oh, that won’t happen here.” But it did. It did happen.Donald Trump and Stephen Miller will wreak havoc on everything our country stands for. It will be a daily dose of outrage and horror. Those who aren’t tuned in to this potential for disaster will realize what they were ignoring only when it is too late.The next election may be the most important in our history as a country. Sitting it out or voting third party is not an option. Our country’s future and our quality of life depend on showing up to vote.People need to understand that these are not offhand remarks. Mr. Trump does what he says he’s going to do. He has clearly shown us what he is and who he is: a wannabe dictator.Kathryn JanusChicagoTo the Editor:Donald Trump’s immigration restriction plans contain much that will be to the liking of the American people. As a lifelong Democrat and the son of immigrants who had to wait years for citizenship, I like it myself because 1) huge amounts of taxpayer dollars are going to the support of undocumented immigrants and 2) America faces a crisis of overpopulation, which is already straining our natural resources.I categorically reject the demonization of immigrants, and I also note that Mr. Trump’s policies generally favor the top 2 percent, not the average American. But if President Biden ignores this issue, or keeps doing what he is doing, it will cost him the election.Alan SalyBrooklynTo the Editor:It is worse than hypocritical that the man behind the dark menace of deportation — Stephen Miller — descends from a family of immigrants who escaped the pogroms in Eastern Europe and found refuge in America.As a Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors, I am frankly appalled by Mr. Miller’s harsh and seemingly uncompromising position.America is nothing if not a nation of immigrants. For Mr. Miller to foment an unrestrained assault against immigrants is, if I may use the term, “beyond the Pale.”Edwin S. RothschildMcLean, Va.Shocked by Trump’s Vow to Root Out ‘Vermin’Former President Donald Trump said his political opposition was the most pressing and pernicious threat facing America during a campaign event in New Hampshire on Saturday.Sophie Park for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “After Calling Foes ‘Vermin,’ Trump Campaign Warns Its Critics Will Be ‘Crushed’” (nytimes.com, Nov. 13):At a campaign event Saturday in New Hampshire, Donald Trump vowed to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”So often I have heard variations on the poem that begins, “First they came for the Communists …”Did the people attending a Veterans Day event not hear the echo from less than 100 years ago when they or their parents or grandparents went to war to protect democracy against fascists from Germany and Italy who voiced these same goals?It is shocking that a vast support network is prepared to put these plans into effect here if the former president is re-elected in 2024.Bob AdlerNew YorkTo the Editor:People are not vermin. Even the person who compares his political opponents to “vermin” is not vermin; he is a human being.Donald Trump’s despicable speech, however, should make every American recoil in horror that he would use such a dehumanizing tactic toward people who disagree with him. The Republican Party should immediately distance itself from Mr. Trump and his dangerous rhetoric.Anyone who believes that people are vermin should not be elected to any office, from local P.T.A. president on up. Certainly, the highest office in the land should never be in the hands of such a person.Justin Stormo GipsonNewman Lake, Wash.Women in China, Loath to Turn Back the Clock Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “China’s Male Leaders Signal to Women That Their Place Is in the Home” (news article, Nov. 3):Although Mao Zedong proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky,” the weight of thousands of years of Chinese culture held back — and continues to hold back — many from attaining their full potential.My mother, born before the 1949 Communist takeover of the government, was prohibited from going to school by her father, but even decades later suffered limited choices, gender discrimination and the societal stigma of having only daughters.Now that Chinese women have tasted power, freedom and independence, they are not going to go back to being merely wives, mothers and caretakers any more than American women, as evidenced by the recent U.S. elections, are going to give up their hard-won reproductive rights to satisfy the wishes of right-wing conservatives.Men on both sides of the globe are going to find that turning back the clock is a lot harder than they thought.Qin Sun StubisBethesda, Md.The writer is a newspaper columnist and author of “Once Our Lives,” a historical saga about four generations of Chinese women.Billionaires, Invest in Earth George WylesolTo the Editor:Re “Space Billionaires Should Spend More Time Thinking About Sex,” by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Nov. 5):Doesn’t it make more sense to address challenges to our future on Earth, a very appealing home for humans, than to try to adapt to hostile, inhospitable planets? We’d likely be better off if Elon Musk and his fellow billionaires would invest their vast sums in things like wind turbines and infrastructure. They might also help advance the human race by promoting development of qualities like compassion, reconciliation and cooperation.Beyond that, the authors make great points about the difficulties of sex and procreation in space. Let’s not forget Earth’s sex appeal!Marjorie LeeWayland, Mass. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden expected to meet with Xi Jinping next month for ‘constructive’ talks

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      Joe Biden is expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit in San Francisco in November for “constructive” talks, the White House said on Tuesday.The comments came days after China’s foreign minister made a rare visit to Washington to pave the way for Xi to meet Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.China has not yet confirmed that Xi will come.“We’re aiming to have a constructive conversation, meeting between the leaders in San Francisco in November,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said of the long-awaited talks.“That’s what’s going to happen next month in November. We’re having a constructive conversation in San Francisco. I think I just confirmed it,” she added.A senior US administration official told AFP: “There is an agreement in principle to meet in San Francisco in November. We are still working through important details needed to finalize those plans.”Biden and Xi have had no contact since a meeting in Bali in November 2022.Relations have been tense for years between the world’s top two economies as they vie for influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, and as Beijing boosts cooperation with Russia in a bid to reduce US dominance.After Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi met senior US officials last week, the White House said that the two sides were “working together towards a meeting”.But the Chinese foreign minister said on Saturday that the road to talks was still “not smooth”.Wang told a Washington event hosted by the Aspen Strategy Group that “both sides hope to stabilize and improve bilateral relations as soon as possible and agreed to work together toward a San Francisco summit between the two heads of state”, state news agency Xinhua reported.“The path to San Francisco is not smooth and cannot be left to ‘autopilot’,” Wang warned, according to Xinhua.The two sides must “eliminate interference, overcome obstacles, enhance consensus and accumulate results”, he said. More

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      in Elections

      DeSantis Says He Will ‘Reorient’ U.S. Foreign Policy to Counter China

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      While the G.O.P. field has largely moved away from the neoconservative policies of George W. Bush, Mr. DeSantis has taken heat for some of his isolationist tendencies, including on Ukraine.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, working to maintain his second-place status in the Republican primary, said Friday that as president he would “reorient” U.S. foreign policy to give clear priority to China while downplaying national security risks posed by conflicts such as Russia’s war on Ukraine.In a speech laying out his approach, Mr. DeSantis cast Beijing as a greater threat to the United States than the Axis powers and the Soviet Union ever were because of its economic might. As commander in chief, he said, he would “prioritize the Indo-Pacific region as the most pressing part of the world for defending U.S. interests and U.S. security.”A less aggressive approach, he argued, would allow China to export its “authoritarian vision all across the world,” creating a “global dystopia.”“They seek to be the dominant power in the entire world, and they are marshaling all their society to be able to achieve that objective,” Mr. DeSantis said. “So this is a formidable threat and it requires a whole of society approach.”Mr. DeSantis’s remarks, delivered in Washington, D.C., at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, come at a difficult moment for his presidential campaign. Not only is he badly trailing former President Donald J. Trump in the polls, but Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations, has successfully positioned herself as a credible alternative to Mr. Trump, puncturing the Florida governor’s argument that the Republican presidential primary is a two-man race.Mr. DeSantis has lately used foreign policy to attack other Republican presidential candidates, rebuking Mr. Trump for his critical comments about Israeli leaders and accusing Ms. Haley — who is attracting growing interest from Republican donors and voters — of being soft on China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More