Obama says key issue is to avoid violence in Hong Kong protests

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong were a "complex" issue and the primary U.S. message was to make sure violence was avoided.     

Short of denouncing China's handling of the crisis, Obama said the United States would not stop speaking out about human rights in China and the situation in Hong Kong because of U.S. interests there.      

"We don't expect China to follow an American model in every instance but we're going to continue to have concerns about human rights...Our primary message has been to make sure that violence is avoided," he said on a visit to Beijing.         

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have occupied economically and politically important districts in the Chinese-controlled city for the past six weeks. Led by a restive generation of students, the protesters are demanding fully-democratic elections for the city's next chief executive in 2017, not the vote between pre-screened candidates that Beijing has said it will allow.       

The peaceful protests, which China has said are illegal, drew well over 100,000 at their peak and are now concentrated in two key areas - the district of Admiralty next to government buildings and across the harbor in Mong Kok.        

The standoff has grown in recent weeks between protesters and Hong Kong government officials with neither side backing down amid waning support from the Hong Kong public who are increasingly frustrated at gridlocked traffic around the financial city.       

China has ruled Hong Kong through a "one country, two systems" formula since the former British colony returned to China in 1997. It allows wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland and specifies universal suffrage as an eventual goal.

Earlier on Monday, President Barack Obama pressed world leaders to break stubborn logjams that have held up an agreement on a trans-Pacific trade deal that is eagerly sought by the White House and could lead to rare consensus with congressional Republicans.  
      

Ahead of Obama's arrival in China Monday, U.S. officials had downplayed the prospect that an elusive deal would be reached during the president's eight-day, three-nation trip to the region. However, the fact that Obama convened the leader-level discussions prompted some speculation of a breakthrough in the 12-nation negotiations.          

Obama has made the Trans-Pacific Partnership a centerpiece of his efforts to boost U.S. economic investment in Asia, which he called "the fastest-growing, most populous, most dynamic region in the world economically."           

The results of last week's U.S. midterm elections had made the political climate in Washington more conducive to international trade pacts.

While some members of Obama's Democratic Party are wary of the impact trade deals could have on U.S. labor unions, Republicans have been supportive of giving the president authority to speed up approval of a final pact by making it harder for lawmakers to make changes.           

Disputes between the U.S. and Japan on market access for their major industries have been at the heart of the stalemate over the trade deal. China is not a party to the trade talks.