President Obama on Importance of the Asian Region
WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back, the big event at day 3 of the G20 meeting in China. It could be an informal meeting between President Obama and Russian President Putin. Obama also has other pretty big diplomatic challenges ahead of him including China. Just yesterday tensions boiled over between members of the president entourage and Chinese officials over security access. I want to bring in Gordon Chang. He is a Columnist for the "Daily Beast" and the author of a book on North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Good to see you, all right. So, China did not necessarily give President Obama a warm welcome upon the arrival of the plane. The tensions are obvious there. Is this China flexing its muscle? I mean, what could have been behind all of that?</s>GORDAN CHANG, COLUMNIST, "DAILY BEAST": Yeah, this is perplexing because China wants a controversy-free G20. And what they're doing is they're sort of pushing everyone in the other direction. I think that this can be explained within the context of China's internal situation. I think President Xi Jinping has probably tried to create a situation where elements in the communist party and the military have to rally behind him. So this really isn't about the United States. It's more about the problems inside China right now which include a very difficult economy. The G20 is supposed to be about the economy. China's got a real problem there.</s>WHITFIELD: Yeah. So the U.S. has also warned China that there would consequences if it doesn't stand down on its expansion to South China Sea. At what point does that warning have to be backed up with some kind of action? Is this something that would even, you know, come into the preview of discussions particularly since we're talking about it statistically and economic kind of session?</s>CHANG: We're going to find out maybe in a couple of days because the Philippine government has reported seeing barges around Scarborough Shoal which China seized in 2012. Those barges are probably a prelude to reclamation which would make permanent and active aggression. And in March President Obama warns Xi Jinping that there would be serious consequences if China started reclamation. So, we're going to have a real live test of Sino-U.S. ties perhaps within a week.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. And then, this side meeting that could be taking place today, China time, between President Obama and Vladimir Putin might it be that the topic of conversation, the primary topic of conversation, would be about Syria.</s>CHANG: Well, Syria certainly is going to be on the agenda but the other issue is the Russian build up of their forces around Ukraine which is certainly worrying NATO and clearly this is something that would involve the United States. So, there are a number of issues about Russia. It is going to be across the board, I think, in terms of a problematic relationship that we've had with the Kremlin in the last couple of years.</s>WHITFIELD: OK. And there are a lot of things that President Obama could potentially be talking about with other leaders. And as it pertains to Turkey, with President Erdogan apparently, you know, President Erdogan has really demanded the return of that exiled clerk whose been living in the United States. Is that something a topic he might broach with President Obama there? Would it be appropriate?</s>CHANG: Yeah. Well, certainly, they've talked about that. They're going to talked about human rights as President Obama has been very firm about human rights. And as we heard in Fareed Zakaria interview, the President makes a very important point. That is, there shouldn't be this crackdown because it was the Turkish people who rally to save the government. So, you know, here we have nuclear weapons based in Turkey. This is going to be something that we've got a lot of interest involved in what happens going forward with Erdogan's dealings with the military.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. And lot potentially on the table in this G20, the last for this sitting president. All right, thank you so much, Gordan Chang. Appreciate it. Good to see you.</s>CHANG: Thank you, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, straight ahead, Donald Trump's running mate, Governor Mike Pence, says he will release his tax returns this week and Trump just might too, but when? We'll discuss that next.