He waved everywhere he went, smiled more than usual, donned a baseball cap, hugged people and even joked. This is uncharacteristic behavior for normally solemn Chinese President Hu Jintao(
Hu's first official visit to the US as president was as much about boosting China's image as about bolstering relations with the US, analysts said.
In that sense, Hu got what he wanted in a symbolic moment on the White House lawn last Thursday when US President George W. Bush welcomed him with a 21-gun salute red carpet treatment.
"I didn't get the feeling he was coming here to break new ground," said Ralph Cossa, a Hawaii-based analyst for Pacific Forum CSIS. "This is about pomp and circumstance, about showing people back home how the US respects China's leaders."
Chinese state-run media gave Hu's trip unprecedented coverage, deleting the part where a member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement heckled Hu while he spoke on the lawn.
There was no mention of the hundreds of demonstrators who dogged Hu everywhere he went, with many tailing him from his first stop in Seattle across the country to Washington and finally to Yale University.
They were protesting China's torture and jailings of tens of thousands of Falun Gong members, Beijing's suppression of Tibetans, imprisonment of rights activists and pressure on Taiwan to unify with the mainland.
Meditating quietly in all-night vigils outside his hotel, holding up signs that called him to free the Web on the Microsoft campus near Seattle, and drumming and shouting to try to drown him out while he spoke at Yale, Hu simply could not avoid his critics.
But these were minor blips in the big picture, analysts said.
What the Chinese cameras beamed to audiences back home was what mattered, they said.
That included widespread coverage of one of the publicity highlights for Hu -- when he donned a blue baseball cap presented by a Boeing worker during a visit and hugged him.
The message was clear: China will help you keep your job by buying the airplanes you make.
Although the trip was preceded by a US$16.2 billion shopping spree by China, including 80 Boeing aircrafts, no agreement was reached on any of the major issues during the Bush-Hu summit.
On trade, Hu pledged to further open China's market and lift barriers, but did not specify concrete measures.
On the yuan, which the US says is undervalued and contributing to its huge deficit with China, Hu said his country would move towards a flexible but stable currency regime, but remained vague.
Hu was non-committal about backing Bush's push to apply more pressure on Iran and North Korea to give up their weapons programs.
Despite the lack of apparent progress, Bush and Hu said they gained a stronger mutual understanding and agreed to work closer together in all areas.
Problems appeared to be brewing already. US Secretary of the Treasury John Snow said Friday ensuring global economic stability and balanced growth was becoming more dependent on China and other countries.
"Disputes could flare up after the trip," said He Maochun (
The most important test of whether Hu's trip is successful is whether he convinced Americans of a key problem analysts said Beijing believes is the underlying cause of frictions -- that the US does not trust China.
Hu repeatedly said China was committed to peaceful development and its rise presented opportunities for Americans.
The former engineer and son of a tea vendor also turned on the charm offensive and shrewdly flew in on a Boeing jet.
Hu floored the audience with laughter when taking questions following his speech: "I also hope when raising questions, my friend will give no mercy to me."
Whether Americans will see China more as a friend and less as a threat remains to be seen. Some were impressed, like Yale student John Kennedy, who said: "He was given some tough questions, and he handled them very well."
A Pakistani immigrant cab driver also applauded him.
"I like him. He's done good for his country," said the man who refused to be named because of widespread suspicion of Muslims in the US following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"China's getting stronger. That's good. We need the competition," he said.
He said he prefers to watch news from China's state-run CCTV channel than US channels.
"US media gives me a one-way street. I don't like one-way streets," the cabbie said.
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