China's Future Leader Is Getting an Unwelcome Reception in the U.S.

[illusion8]

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is having a somewhat contentious visit to the U.S. this week and it doesn't sound like it's going to get much better.

Bloomberg reports that Xi is expected to receive a "chilly reception" when he meets with congressional leaders today who are looking to land jabs over China's trade and currency policies. “The rhetoric out of the Congress on China is much more muscular and confrontational because they know they’re not running China policy, the White House is running China policy,” said Robert Kapp, the former president of the U.S.-China Business Council. Because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority leader Mitch McConnel and House Speaker John Boener are expected to ding Xi on a range of issues, Kapp tells Bloomberg “It’s a bad cop, good cop situation.”

The only problem with that analogy is it presumes Xi's reception with the White House was cordial. According to report from Xi's meeting with President Obama and Vice President Biden, that was far from the case. Sky News' China correspondent Holly Williams reported that President Obama "was quite frank, quite hard with Xi Jinping. He pushed him on Iran and Syria, he pushed him on human rights and criticised China on economic issues."

According to The New York Times, Biden was even more confrontational. During his toast to Xi, usually an opportunity for friendliness, "Mr. Biden presented a long list of grievances — ranging from theft of intellectual property and human rights abuses to China’s refusal to back United Nations sanctions against Syria ... striking a sober and businesslike mood," write Mark Landler and Edward Wong. Because Xi's toast stuck to the "standard diplomatic script," the Times says Biden's remarks came off like an "American lecture," which wasn't helped by the extended translation that " stretched out his points in the pin-drop silence."

Meanwhile, on the GOP campaign trail, Mitt Romney is taking the opportunity to lash out at China, with Aaron Friedberg, his foreign policy adviser, accentuating the need to "get tough." “[We need to] take a stronger stand than we’ve been doing and be prepared for the fact that the Chinese aren’t going to like it and are going to complain about it," he told The Telegraph today. "Up to now it has been almost exclusively talk – and talk is cheap."

To some, bashing China's trade policy may be exactly what a U.S. politician looking out for U.S. interests ought to be doing. As Bloomberg notes, "the U.S.-China trade deficit was $295 billion last year, $23 billion wider than a year earlier, and the imbalance is a main source of friction between the two countries." However, others, such as The Daily Beast's Zachary Karabell, emphasize that China isn't the bad guy. "The American tendency to blame China for assorted domestic economic ills is one of the more troubling features of contemporary politics and society," he writes. "Manufacturing jobs started disappearing from the American heartland long before the rise of China—to Japan and Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s, and then to Mexico in the 1980s."



China's Future Leader Is Getting an Unwelcome Reception in the U.S. - Global - The Atlantic Wire

 

[ZABASHO]

MUSCATINE, Iowa — Love is in the air in Iowa — or at least the diplomatic equivalent of it.

When Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived in this small town late Wednesday, carefully chosen welcoming gifts were on hand, nostalgic remembrances were on everyone’s lips and hearts all around were ready for the wooing.

Officially speaking, Xi, who is expected to become China’s president next year, picked Iowa as the centerpiece of his U.S. tour because he visited here as a lowly provincial official in 1985 to learn about American agriculture.

But, more broadly, the town of Muscatine provides a convenient backdrop for Chinese officials hoping to emphasize the idea of an enduring U.S.-Chinese friendship at a time when the two nations are fierce economic competitors, policy opponents and military rivals.

The Chinese want to remind Americans — and their audience back home — that the two nations are also intimately intertwined as trading partners and stakeholders in global affairs.

“The relationship is like some magnetic field where there’s powerful attraction and repulsion. It’s what makes these exchanges so hard,” said Orville Schell, director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations. “The Chinese are extremely sensitive to any sign of disrespect even as they do things that are clearly not worthy of respect. Meanwhile, you have Americans who are used to being the wealthy, dominant one, evangelizing their ways and thinking.”

To say that U.S.-Chinese relations have changed since Xi was last here would be an understatement. Many in Muscatine — population 23,000, 87 percent white, 0.8 percent Asian American — who hosted him back then remember the exotic nature of his visit nearly three decades ago. China was just opening up, and Xi was a vaguely congenial, though serious, leader of a small agricultural delegation, residents recall.

“It was difficult to really get beyond that superficial level. They didn’t speak English, we didn’t speak Chinese, and there was only one interpreter,” said Sarah Lande, who helped plan Xi’s two-night stay.

The warmth and hospitality Xi apparently experienced, Lande said, was partly born of a limited budget. With little more than gas money from a “sister state” organization, she found beds for Xi and his delegation by roping in friends who had hosted exchange students or had an interest in faraway places.

Among them was a Muscatine housewife, Eleanor Dvorchak, and her husband, who ended up with the future leader of China sleeping in their sons’ bedroom, surrounded by “Star Trek” figurines.

The next morning, with the interpreter and the other officials sleeping elsewhere and her husband off to work, Dvorchak shared breakfast with Xi in a sometimes awkward silence.

“We managed to communicate just basic things, like offering a cup of tea or water. It didn’t even get to ‘How many children do you have?’ ” said Dvorchak, who is now 72. After breakfast, the pair sat in the living room, staring out the picture window, waiting for Xi’s ride to arrive.

“At the time, it was a little awkward. I don’t know what he thought of it all,” she said, “but it made a deep impression on me, and I guess apparently on him, too.”

In the years since, U.S.-China relations have been markedly cooler. Military ties between the countries have been cut off repeatedly for months at a time. Both sides routinely resort to heated rhetoric over China’s economic policy, among other issues.

At a State Department lunch with Xi on Tuesday, Vice President Biden cited a long list of U.S. grievances: human rights, theft of intellectual property, China’s currency valuation, fair trade practices and differences over policy in Syria.

Xi, appearing before the U.S.-China Business Council, offered a mild retort Wednesday, saying the two countries must build greater trust between them. U.S.-China cooperation is on a “course that cannot be stopped or reversed,” he said.

“These summits are kind of like date night,” said Michael Green, a former White House adviser on Asia. “No matter what happens during the week — and a lot of bad things happen in U.S.-China relations — every once in a while the leaders have to get together and say: ‘I love you, man. Or if I don’t love you, at least I’m going to work with you.’ ”

So it was that Xi found himself at an afternoon tea Wednesday in a three-story house in Muscatine, surrounded by friendly faces he hadn’t seen in nearly three decades.

For her part, Dvorchak, who now lives in Florida, flew back to Iowa for the occasion. She had picked out the perfect gift to help China’s future leader understand her own president: a copy of the pop-psychology book “Obama on the Couch.”

“I even learned to write his name in Chinese so I could do a little inscription,” she said. “Who knows? No one would have guessed all those years ago that hosting this man from China would turn out the way it did. You never know what will make an impression.”

Xi visits Iowa, where the diplomatic equivalent of love is in the air - The Washington Post​

 

[illusion8]

"For Xi's sake, one can only hope he gets a taste of that "Iowa nice" when he makes his evening visit to Muscatine to visit the Victorian farmhouse he lived in more than 25 years ago. Can a small town in Iowa salvage Xi's stay here?"

Face Saver

 

[ZABASHO]

"For Xi's sake, one can only hope he gets a taste of that "Iowa nice" when he makes his evening visit to Muscatine to visit the Victorian farmhouse he lived in more than 25 years ago. Can a small town in Iowa salvage Xi's stay here?"

Face Saver

its not about salvaging the trip or not. Its about the different opinions present in the country towards one of the would be most powerful person. And if the Chinese play their cards right, they can actually grow on this perception.

 

[Jade]

I think Obama also has given some lecture to Xi on human rights records

See who is the master :

 

[illusion8]

its not about salvaging the trip or not. Its about the different opinions present in the country towards one of the would be most powerful person. And if the Chinese play their cards right, they can actually grow on this perception.

LOL will do a world of good if they do, but back home it will be construed as a sign of weakness.

 

[ZABASHO]

LOL will do a world of good if they do, but back home it will be construed as a sign of weakness.

what makes you so sure of that?

 

[illusion8]

what makes you so sure of that?

"Pandering to the west" is the vague term, a sure sign of weakness if you are chinese.

 

[ZABASHO]

"Pandering to the west" is the vague term, a sure sign of weakness if you are chinese.

perhaps.... in a minority!

In Chinese, the name of USA also translates to "beautiful country"

 

[illusion8]

perhaps.... in a minority!

In Chinese, the name of USA also translates to "beautiful country"

Difference of opinion, I think its the majority.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

perhaps.... in a minority!

In Chinese, the name of USA also translates to "beautiful country"

Many Chinese are moving away from that translation and using the Japanese name: 米国 rice country. Anyways, China has nice translations for almost every "new" country: 德国 (Germany) = Moral Country, 英国 (Britain) = Distinguished Country, etc etc.

For "old" countries that we have had contact with for centuries, we have old names: 日本 for Japan which means sun's origin, 俄罗斯 is the Mongol name for Russia, and Vietnam 越南, Cambodia 柬埔寨 and India 印度 were all old names.

 

[illusion8]

^^^ what does that mean?

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

^^^ what does that mean?

the namse for "new" European colonial powers was not based on history. Instead they were phonetically interpreted. Especially for major powers, the trend was then to reduce the phonetic interpretation into a single letter and add "country" to it.

For example, America was called 美利坚, which then got shortened to 美国 = Beautiful country. In Japan, because 美 is prounced Bi instead of Mei, they use 米, which is pronounced Mei in Japanese and Mi in Chinese, so in Japan it was shortened to 米国 which means rice country. The US is neither beautiful nor does it produce much rice, its just a name.

France was called 法兰西 (Francais) but was shortened to 法国 (which if you look at the meaning, is law country, but we all know French law ) and 德意志 (Deusche) was shortened to 德国.

 

[illusion8]

TY, back to topic ,

Chinese officials have carefully choreographed Xi's U.S. trip as a rite of passage in China's once-in-a-decade leadership transition. He is expected to become head of the ruling Communist Party later this year as a prelude to taking over the presidency.

U.S. officials hope the talks will help them gauge the priorities Xi will pursue. He is less stiff in public than the man he will succeed as president, Hu Jintao, but his views remain largely opaque to policymakers in Washington.

Xi is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit the White House since Obama launched a new U.S. "pivot" toward Asia in November to counterbalance China's increasing assertiveness in the region. Beijing has expressed misgivings about the U.S. shift.

Like Obama, Xi will not want to come across as a pushover -- in the face of U.S. pressure on trade imbalances, human rights, the violence in Syria and other points of friction. He has to play to a powerful Communist Party apparatus and nationalist sentiment at home.

However, in the build-up to Xi's visit, he and other Chinese officials have played down tensions, voicing hopes for improved cooperation as long as Washington heeds Beijing's concerns.

Xi's tour will take him from Washington to a farm in Iowa to Los Angeles as he looks to ease Americans' worries about China's strength and intentions. He is a Communist Party "princeling" -- the son of a revolutionary leader -- but also fond of small-town America and Hollywood war dramas.

Obama's aides see the visit yielding few, if any, formal agreements, but they expect the leaders to size each other up.

Looks like the CPC is sizing up Xi as well.

 

[illusion8]

Xi wraps up highly scripted visit to US capital - Times Union