In November 2014, at the height of the Umbrella Movement, I traveled to Beijing with President Obama. The focus of the trip was securing an ambitious Chinese pledge to combat climate change: If the United States and China could make a joint announcement about their commitments to slow global warming, the rest of the world could be brought along to achieve what would end up as the Paris Agreement. Hong Kong was in the backdrop, the latest human rights irritant in our relationship with the Chinese government and therefore something Obama would raise in his meeting with Xi. To the American media,
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