Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) arrived in Washington on Tuesday to find demonstrators outside his bedroom window and a stream of condemnation flowing from Capitol Hill.
At the same time, the mainstream media was full of criticism.
The Washington Post condemned China for continuing to “deny its citizens freedom and the rule of law.” The New York Times said that China would never be a great nation if it continued censoring and imprisoning its people. And the Wall Street Journal said that if China wanted to be treated as an equal it had to act like one.
Hu barely had time to unpack before he was whisked across Pennsylvania Avenue to attend a private dinner in the White House with US President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.
It was a low-key affair at which both sides agreed in advance to discuss the tone and the tenor of US-China relations while avoiding contentious issues like human rights and Taiwan.
Those issues were being kept for yesterday, when Hu was to be given a 21-gun salute, a state dinner and two more closed-door sessions with Obama.
TAIWAN DISCUSSION
Analysts believe that Taiwan would be raised in the first of these sessions — to be held in the Oval Office — and that Obama would reiterate US policy to sell arms to Taiwan. Some analysts also say he would urge Hu to cut back on the number of missiles now threatening Taiwan.
What is not known is how Obama would react to any new proposals concerning Taiwan that Hu might make.
The Chinese delegation is staying in Blair House, a government mansion just across the street from the White House and next door to the 2.8 hectare Lafayette Park where Taiwanese, Tibetan and Uyghur demonstrations were in full swing with participants shouting slogans and waving flags.
Meanwhile, about the same time as Hu’s plane was touching down, Republican Representative Chris Smith opened a conference in a congressional hearing room on “Human Rights in Hu Jintao’s China.”
Smith said that it was “inconceivable” that the security and media campaign unleashed in China against Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), his family and his supporters, wasn’t approved by Hu.
He said that Obama, as the 2009 Nobel Peace laureate, had an obligation to call for Liu’s release “publicly and vigorously.”
“Beyond this, I urge President Obama to join us in speaking out for all those in China whose basic human rights are violated. I particularly want to mention Chinese women. The Chinese government’s one-child-per-couple policy, with its attendant horrors of forced abortion campaigns and rampant sex-selective abortion, is, in scope and seriousness, the worst human rights abuse — the worst gender crime — in the world today,” Smith said.
“Unfortunately, for two years the Obama administration has made nothing but weak, pro forma responses to human rights abuses in China,” he said. “Our country can’t afford to continue doing this. We need to challenge human rights abuses publicly and in language that shows we mean business. We need to show that a major factor in estimating the Chinese government’s threat to other countries is its abuse of its own people.”
However, such demands come as the US is pushing China to buy tens of billions of dollars in Boeing Co aircraft, auto parts, agricultural goods and beef.
And leaders from both sides say that they want to demonstrate that the relationship is back on track.
Meanwhile, the mood in Congress is not sweet.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer unveiled legislation this week to punish China for suppressing the value of its currency.
“Both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the House, and the American people are just fed up when, up and down the line, China doesn’t play by the rules and seeks unfair economic advantage,” Schumer said.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
BOOST IN CONFIDENCE: The sale sends a clear message of support for Taiwan and dispels rumors that US President Donald Trump ‘sold out’ the nation, an expert said The US government on Thursday announced a possible sale to Taiwan of fighter jet parts, which was estimated to cost about US$330 million, in a move that an expert said “sends a clear message of support for Taiwan” amid fears that Washington might be wavering in its attitude toward Taipei. It was the first announcement of an arms sale to Taiwan since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. The proposed package includes non-standard components, spare and repair parts, consumables and accessories, as well repair and return support for the F-16, C-130 and Indigenous Defense Fighter aircraft,
CHECKING BOUNDARIES: China wants to disrupt solidarity among democracies and test their red lines, but it is instead pushing nations to become more united, an expert said The US Department of State on Friday expressed deep concern over a Chinese public security agency’s investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for “secession.” “China’s actions threaten free speech and erode norms that have underpinned the cross-strait ‘status quo’ for decades,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” and launched an investigation into alleged “secession-related” criminal activities, including his founding of the Kuma Academy, a civil defense organization that prepares people for an invasion by China. The spokesperson said that the US was “deeply concerned” about the bureau investigating Shen
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
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