THE CHINESE president Hu Jintao has arrived in the United States for a four-day state visit at a time of growing tension between the two countries.
“Assertive” is the word used most often to describe the chief protagonists in this week’s pomp and ceremony, which included a private dinner between the US and Chinese leaders at the White House last night, followed by a 21- gun salute and state dinner with all the trappings this evening.
China is routinely described as economically, politically and militarily “assertive” or “aggressive” by US media. Mr Hu’s visit underscores US concern about the country’s own decline, which is augmented by fear of China. A recent opinion poll by the Pew Research Center found that nearly half the US public believe China is already the world’s greatest economic power, when it still trails the US.
In a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last year, a majority said China, not the US, would lead the world 20 years from now.
Two years ago, secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that human rights violations would not be allowed to “interfere” with US-Chinese relations. In a landmark speech on bilateral ties at the State Department on January 14th, Mrs Clinton said the relationship was at a “critical juncture” and criticised Beijing.
“The longer China represses freedoms, the longer that Nobel Prize winners’ empty chairs in Oslo will remain a symbol of a great nation’s unrealised potential and unfulfilled promise,” she said.
After the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October, China attempted to dissuade other countries from attending the award ceremony.
President Barack Obama, himself a Nobel laureate, this week has the awkward and unprecedented distinction of welcoming a president who holds another Nobel laureate in prison.
When Mr Obama travelled to Beijing in November 2009, he was criticised for being too deferential to Mr Hu. Mr Obama signalled a policy shift at the UN General Assembly last September, when he warned those who “put human rights aside for the promise of short-term stability or the false notion that economic growth can come at the expense of freedom”.
US newspaper editorialists yesterday called on Mr Obama to follow up on Mrs Clinton’s tough rhetoric. White House briefers have said Mr Obama will be more assertive with Mr Hu this time. On January 13th, he received five human rights activists, three of whom were born in China, for 75 minutes.
China’s reputation in the US is damaged by the absence of civil liberties and the widespread perception that its undervalued currency, the renminbi, destroys US jobs and expands China’s $252 billion annual trade surplus with the US.
At Washington’s insistence, Mr Hu will join Mr Obama in a White House press conference today.
Deeper policy issues however are likely to be papered over with tens of billions of dollars in contracts that Mr Hu will sign this week. Tomorrow, he will travel to Chicago, home of the US’s largest aircraft manufacturer, Boeing.
In addition to aircraft, China is expected to buy auto parts, agricultural goods and beef to improve trade relations with the US.
In the run-up to Mr Hu’s visit, the secretaries of the treasury and commerce called on China to appreciate the value of its currency and to give greater access to US goods in Chinese markets.
Senator Charles Schumer of New York is this week renewing a six-year-old push for legislation that would penalise China for currency manipulation. Americans "are just fed up when, up and down the line, China doesn't play by the rules and seeks unfair economic advantage," Mr Schumer told the Wall Street Journal.
Ties between Beijing and Washington are regarded as the most important bilateral relationship in the world, but it is skewed in favour of Beijing, which holds $2.85 trillion in US dollar reserves – nearly one fifth of the US $14 trillion debt.
Although China has supported UN sanctions against the Iranian nuclear programme, Washington still suspects Beijing of having a lax attitude to enforcement. The US reproaches China for not doing more to restrain North Korea, which recently sank a South Korean naval vessel and shelled a South Korean island.
The US is trying to counter new Chinese aggression, including a claim to several small islands in the South China Sea, by strengthening its ties to Japan, South Korea and southeast Asia.
At the same time, the US also seeks to renew ties with the Chinese military, which Beijing suspended in anger over US arms sales to Taiwan.
On the day the US secretary of defence, Robert Gates, met Mr Hu in Beijing last week, China tested its J-20 stealth fighter. The US viewed this as an aggressive gesture, but it whetted appetites in Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore for buying Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.