A standard line in the American political handbook is that “lame duck” presidents – especially those who have suffered a drubbing at the polls if their party has fallen very flat in a mid-term election – find solace in the arms of foreigners, amidst a growing roster of official visits abroad. The rationale for this judgment is that foreign policy largely remains the executive’s prerogative, constitutionally, in America, just as long as it doesn’t cost anything.

But, if the president or his administration actually succeeds in reaching a substantive international agreement, then they must go back to that increasingly hostile Congress to get budget approval to cover the costs incurred in any such new agreement, as well as deal with the domestic pulling and tugging over the consequences of such a deal to the multitude of affected interest groups and industrial sectors. And, of course, there will be intense congressional debate over any proposed changes in trade laws, once they have been negotiated. As a result, even that supposed presidential refuge in the sphere of foreign affairs will inevitably have significant domestic political consequences, given the temperature of America’s partisan political circumstances these days.

Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Barack Obama is off on a swing through Beijing, Myanmar/Burma and Brisbane, Australia for some of those trademark foreign capital photo opps. But, actually, this particular trip is hardly entirely of his doing, nearly as much as it has been determined by an implacable international summit calendar. First up was the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting that ended on Tuesday. APEC membership includes most of the nations facing the Pacific Ocean on either coast – including Russia, China, Japan and America. Actually, attendees are “economies” rather than nations, since Taiwan – as an “economy” – also gets a seat at this event.

In years gone by, when APEC was still a new kid on the international summit block, attendees used to be captured in a group photo of the whole pack of them, all wearing an excruciatingly embarrassing shirt that was supposedly evocative of the place where the meeting was taking place – although they never had to wear funny hats to go with their silly shirts. Fortunately, in the past couple of years, this custom has finally been given a quiet burial – although it always was fun to see who was the most embarrassed in the shirt of the year.

Even though APEC remains a phrase in search of an actual noun (Is it a conference, a summit, an organisation, a committee? No one really knows, it seems), it has remained a relatively cohesive yearly gathering – and largely true to the intentions of its original participants. That is, its focus has been on the economic and financial issues and opportunities that come from building on the globe’s preeminent set of trading relationships.

And important discussions – and sometimes agreements – also take place on the margins of APEC meetings, even if their plenary sessions don’t usually move all that much beyond the usual anodyne pronouncements of communiqués that emanate from such gatherings. This time around, while it wasn’t strictly speaking APEC business, China and Japan managed to hammer out a tight-lipped, more-grimace-than-smile agreement to establish a consultative mechanism to help dial back their increasingly tense relationship on the military-security side of the ledger.

Additionally, the US and China managed to hammer out an important bilateral deal over the global high tech trade that might well help bring to an end tariffs on some $1 trillions’ worth of global trade in semiconductors, MRI machines, GPS devices, printer ink cartridges, video game consoles and many other high-tech items. Most astonishingly, perhaps, and again on the margins and falling somewhere between the APEC meeting and a US-China bilateral summit, the two economic giants came together in an unexpected agreement to roll back carbon emissions. Specifically, this agreement includes a renewed American commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and China’s the first-ever commitment to do the same. This agreement offers real hope for the UN’s 21^st climate change conference, now scheduled for Paris in 2015.

As the AP reported from Beijing on the unexpected accord, “…the dual announcements from President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, unveiled Wednesday in Beijing, came as a shock to environmentalists who had pined for such action but suspected China’s reluctance and Obama’s weakened political standing might interfere. In Washington, Republicans were equally taken aback, accusing Obama of saddling future presidents with an unrealistic burden.

“In fact, the deal had been hashed out behind the scenes for months. During two days of talks last year at the Sunnylands estate in California, Obama and Xi reached an agreement on pursuing the reduction of hydrofluorocarbons that are used in refrigerators and insulating foams. A few months later, the U.S. and China would finalise the deal to seek the elimination of the potent gases. To the White House, China’s willingness to reach an accord on HFCs suggested a broader openness in tackling climate change, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday.”

Of course it wasn’t all peaches and crème at the APEC summit, or convention, or conference, or potlatch party or whatever it is called. Just to make sure the Americans didn’t get any funny ideas about this sudden burst of cooperation from Xi Jinping’s administration in China, the Chinese air force also used this time to unwrap a brand-spanking new, handy-dandy stealth fighter jet at an entirely coincidental air show – just in case anybody got any of those crazy ideas about too much peace and love breaking out all of a sudden.

And then there was that thing between Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Russian President Vladimir Putin. About a month ago, Abbott had threatened to “shirtfront” Putin over Russia’s role in downing that Malaysian Airline plane shot down over Ukraine. And then there he was, taking a verbal poke at Putin on the APEC sidelines about that matter. Not totally surprisingly, this verbal swipe has apparently not gone down terribly well with Putin, who has now sent a mini-flotilla of four Russian naval vessels towards Australia to “shirtfront” the land down under. And so, when the two leaders meet on the sidelines of the G20 meeting – are they going to smack each other across their respective chops and challenge their counterpart to a duel – with boomerangs of scimitars? This could be one very entertaining G20 meeting.

Oh, and lest it be forgotten, in the bilateral portion of the US-China meeting, at the inevitable leaders joint press conference, after an awkward moment where it looked as if Xi was going to ignore uncomfortable questions – particularly one from the New York Times reporter travelling with the Obama delegation – the Chinese president eventually admitted that his country’s human rights record was not perfect and that they were working to improve it. And he managed to do that without rubbing in any substantial criticism of the US over Guantanamo prisoners, or anything else. Of course Xi didn’t offer to give Tibet independence or stop harassing human rights campaigners inside China and Hong Kong, but that public admission by Xi was taken as a big plus for the Obama administration. Reaching back to the tenor of his first trip to China, every time the president foregoes an opportunity to slam China over its human rights record, he has taken a hit instead from his foreign policy critics on both the right and the left in America.

The Obama delegation’s next stop was Myanmar/Burma so he could attend the Association of South East Asian Nations – ASEAN – leaders summit. There, while demonstrating support for the member nation’s increasing caution vis-à-vis China, the US president also has opportunities to goose the local military regime there into further concessions towards the political opposition, as well as to cajole them into taking some leadership and responsibility to end the truly atrocious maltreatment of the Rohingya, Burma’s Muslim minority.

Then, on the 15^th and 16^th, the G20 meeting occurs in Brisbane, Australia. The G20 meetings always seem to bring out scads of protesters over all kinds of issues. (The last time Australia hosted this gaggle, in Melbourne, there were days of street battles between police and demonstrators that, at its apex, had Oz’s security battalions beating back efforts by protesters to storm the summit’s actual meeting site. This time around, the Aussies are taking no chances. Brisbane is bringing in a lockdown that has banned possession of “reptiles or insects capable of causing physical harm,” as well as raw eggs and metal tins – just in case.

The potential for telegenic battles between Vladimir Putin and Tony Abbott, protesters and police, Xi Jinping and human rights campaigners, and miscellaneous critics against everybody else may well outweigh the discussions that take place at the G20 plenaries and sidelines meetings. Regardless, besides the street scenes, watch for an intricate dance between the G20 as a structure and the BRICS caucus, as well as some vigorous discussions between civil society representatives and national leaders from less than transparent paragons of open governance. And there will be less exciting discussions about international tax reform, labour and youth employment issues, and a still-pressing need to goose along higher rates of economic growth in many of the G20 member nations – especially those in Europe. And, of course, South Africans will be interested in seeing just how vigorously President Jacob Zuma presses the case for more attention from the G20 grouping to pay close attention to Africa’s development needs. DM

Read more:

• Australian politicians said some crazy things this week about coal, Putin, and other stuff at the Global Post
• US-China climate deal aims to prod others to act at the AP
• US-China deal could end fees on $1T in tech sales at the AP
• A Fruitful Visit by Obama Ends With Blunt Words by Xi Jinping at the New York Times

Main Pic:  US President Barack Obama and China’s Premier Li Keqiang during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing November 12, 2014. (REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic)