Analysis: Success of Obama's China visit a matter of appearances

Published on Friday 27 November 2009 21:39

UNITED States president Barack Obama's first trip to China was like a splendid stage play.

The performance was long rehearsed in Washington and Beijing, because both governments needed at least the appearance of a successful visit. China's ruling Communist Party needed Mr Obama's unequivocal endorsement of the country's increasingly important international role in order to buttress its domestic legitimacy.

The US needed China's co-operation to demonstrate the effectiveness of Mr Obama's new strategy of collaborative global leadership.

Now that the play is over and the applause has died down, it is time to check the balance sheet and see how much Mr Obama achieved and how much he conceded.

On the positive side of the ledger, Mr Obama received ceremonial treatment not normally accorded to visiting foreign leaders, even other visiting US presidents, demonstrating the importance China's government attached to the visit.

China's president, Hu Jintao, sent his likely successor, vice-president Xi Jinping, to greet Mr Obama at Beijing Airport, going well beyond the usual protocol. And Mr Hu dined with Mr Obama twice during his two-day stay in Beijing – a gesture never before made to a visiting foreign leader, including Mr Obama's predecessor, George W Bush.

Mr Obama also initially appeared to make some progress in giving voice to the universal values of human rights and democracy. He met students in Shanghai in his favourite "town-hall" format, which allowed face-to-face discussions with them.

Moreover, China's government allowed Nanfang Zhoum, the country's most liberal newspaper, to conduct a 12-minute exclusive interview with Mr Obama.

But the Chinese public soon discounted the value of these political set pieces.

People quickly discovered that the "students" allowed to ask questions at Mr Obama's town-hall meeting in Shanghai were young Communist party activists.

Moreover, unlike with other United States presidents, the event was not broadcast nationwide, and Nanfang Zhoumo's full interview with Mr Obama did not appear in the newspaper, despite the Communist Party propaganda department's advance approval of all the interview questions.

And on the negative side of the ledger? Mr Obama gave up two things that have usually been at the top of the agenda when US presidents meet with Chinese leaders.

Firstly, Mr Obama did not openly criticise the Chinese government's notorious human rights record, nor did he use his influence to persuade China to release any prisoner of conscience, as his US predecessors always did when visiting the country.

While Mr Obama toasted Mr Hu, Liu Xiaobo, a famous Chinese dissident, remained shut away in an unknown location, having vanished last December because of his leading role in drafting a written appeal for constitutional rights.

Soon after Mr Obama left China, two other writers, Huang Qi and Tan Tiandun, were sent to prison.

Their crime was to investigate cases of corruption by local government officials that were linked to the deaths of tens of thousands of students in the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008.

Secondly, Mr Obama did not seriously seek to resolve existing US-China economic disagreements, particularly over trade.

With China running a seemingly perpetual external surplus, foreign currency reserves have continued to mount even during the global economic crisis, with net growth reaching $140 billion in the third quarter of this year.

China's main trade partners are deeply worried about this continuing imbalance. They urge China's government to reduce its export subsidies and to allow the yuan to appreciate, expecting such measures to cut their trade deficits, help their economies recover, and create jobs. On this front, however, China's leaders made no compromise with Mr Obama.

So, on balance, Mr Obama's first trip to China achieved relatively little. Moreover, what he did achieve looks superficial, while what he gave up seems substantial.

Of course, this is partly because of the changes in the relative economic and political power of the US and China over the past decade, and especially during the global economic crisis.

However, the sizeable deficit on the balance sheet of Mr Obama's China trip could have been much lower if he had paid more attention to substance.

It seems that Hu Jintao is more skilful than the highly polished Mr Obama at maximising his gains at little cost.

&#149 Wei Zhang is lecturer in the Chinese economy at Cambridge University.