USA sin mottagelse av den kinesiske presidenten

[Hubbert]

http://smh.com.au/news/world/chinese-leade...5344272751.html

THE Chinese President, Hu Jintao, got almost everything he wanted out of his visit to the White House.

 

He got the 21-gun salute, the review of the troops and the colonial fife and drum corps. He got the exchange of toasts and a meal of wild Alaskan halibut with mushroom essence, $US50 ($68) chardonnay and live bluegrass music. And he got an Oval Office photo op with President George Bush, who nodded and smiled as if he understood Chinese when Mr Hu was speaking.

 

If only the White House hadn't given press credentials to a Falun Gong activist who five years ago heckled Mr Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, in Malta. Sure enough, 90 seconds into Mr Hu's speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking "President Hu, your days are numbered!" and "President Bush, stop him from killing!"

 

Mr Bush and Mr Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her - a full three minutes - that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese President haltingly tried to continue his speech and television coverage went to split screen.

 

"You're OK," Mr Bush gently reassured Mr Hu.

 

But he wasn't OK, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day full of indignities - some intentional, others just careless. The visit began with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national anthem of the Republic of China" - the official name of Taiwan. It continued when the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when Mr Hu, trying to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by his jacket. Mr Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the President of the United States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.

 

Then there were the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Mr Jiang got, but the Administration refused, calling it an "official" visit instead. Mr Bush acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.

 

But as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at the White House. Explaining the incident - the first disruption at the executive mansion in recent memory - officials said she was "a legitimate journalist" and that there was nothing suspicious in her background. In other words: Who knew?

 

Mr Hu did. The Chinese had warned the White House to be careful about who was admitted to the ceremony. To no avail: it granted a one-day pass to Wang Wenyi of the Falun Gong-affiliated publication Epoch Times.

 

A quick internet search shows that in 2001, she slipped through a security cordon in Malta protecting Mr Jiang (she had been denied media credentials) and got into an argument with him. The 47-year-old pathologist is expected to be charged with attempting to harass a foreign official.

 

Mr Bush later apologised to the angry Chinese leader in the Oval Office. But Mr Hu was in no mood to make concessions.

 

In negotiations, he gave the US side nothing tangible on delicate matters such as the nuclear problems in North Korea and Iran, the Chinese currency's value and the trade deficit with China.

 

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