text: 11/21/2011 08:34 am ET
  With Europe's growth stalled, and the continent teetering on the edge of another recession, Obama redirected his focus across the Pacific to an area largely out of recession and steadily growing – and which now accounts for roughly 50 percent of the world's economic output.
  He was able to perform as an active player in the summits in Hawaii and Bali, Indonesia, and in his visit to Australia – after finding himself largely on the sidelines in efforts to resolve the euro zone's deepening debt crisis.
  Obama's return to the land of gridlock was abrupt. As Obama signed into law rare bipartisan legislation to give companies tax breaks for hiring unemployed military veterans, a special 12-member congressional panel was poised on Monday to declare complete failure in its attempt to bring federal deficits down $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
  That failure caused stock markets in the U.S. and Europe to tumble, with the Dow industrials plunging more than 300 points. Obama urged congressional negotiators not to give up.
  He also called the new Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, who took power while Obama was out of the country. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama thanked Monti "for taking on such a significant responsibility at a critical time."
  Also, Carney called the Asia-Pacific trip one of "substantial accomplishments" that he said would make clear the United States "will be all in when it comes to Asia."
  By a wide bipartisan margin, the Senate last month passed a bill to punish China for deliberately undervaluing its currency, a practice that makes Chinese products cheaper in the United States – at a time when the U.S. manufacturing sector is struggling and jobs are scarce.
  Only former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman – who recently was U.S. ambassador to China – warns against actions against China that could result in trade retaliation. He is a former U.S. ambassador to China.
  As to borrowing from China to help cover U.S. budget deficits, China buys Treasury bonds the same way as other countries, mutual and pension funds and individual investors do – on the open market.