Obama in Beijing to attend APEC meeting

BEIJING — President Obama arrived in Beijing on Monday for a week-long trip to three countries — China, Burma and Australia — for summits with other world leaders.

The president's focus turns to foreign policy after last week's drubbing of Democrats in the midterm elections and just after North Korea's surprise release of two Americans on Saturday.

Obama starts the week with the annual meeting of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, in Beijing. At the heart of the summit are rival trade agreements being pushed by the United States and China.

Obama also holds separate meetings Monday with Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

"Most Asian countries still worry about China's expansion and increased influence," said Sun Zhe, director of the Center for Sino-U.S. Relations at Qinghua University in Beijing. "They still have doubts whether China is taking over their market or their islands."

If South Korean officials shared that apprehension they were able to set it aside Monday, as South Korea's presidential office announced a free trade deal with China to remove tariffs on more than 90% of goods over 20 years.

The announcement came after South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC, apparently completing negotiations that began in May 2012.

Xi is also holding a meeting at APEC with Japanese President Shizu Abe Monday, after two years of tension between the two nations created by a dispute over uninhabited East China Sea islands.

Obama will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday. The two leaders are likely to tackle such tough issues as human rights, Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests, climate change and the continuing island territorial disputes between China and Japan.

The United States and China share a "sweet and sour" relationship, with plenty of discord but multiple avenues for cooperation, Sun said. "It's good for the two leaders to spend time together in informal meetings."

Obama then heads to Burma, also known as Myanmar, for the East Asia Summit. At the end of the week, he goes to Brisbane, Australia, for the G-20 economic summit of world leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also attending the APEC and G-20 summits, but no direct meetings are scheduled with Obama.

As for APEC, which China hasn't hosted since 2001, authorities took drastic measures to curb the pervasive air pollution ahead of the meeting. For 10 days, polluting factories in neighboring provinces have been shut down or scaled back operations.

Only half the city's cars are allowed on the roads each day. And many businesses and schools are closed for a week — all attempts to make the air a little cleaner as China takes the world stage hosting the summit.

"I wish we could have APEC every day," said Ma Ning, 35, whose son's kindergarten shut Friday. "The air is so clean, it shows if the government tries their best, we could have blue sky every day."

Contributing: The Associated Press