Xi Jinping

We welcome your rise (sort of)

Feb 15th 2012, 15:03 by Lexington

WHEN he wants to relax, the man most likely to be the next leader of China enjoys watching American basketball on television. He has fond memories of his brief stay with an American family in Iowa more than a quarter of a century ago. There he saw local corn farming and was deeply impressed by America's hospitality and industriousness. So, at least, Xi Jinping, China's vice-president, told the Washington Postin written remarks on the eve of his state visit this week.

It is therefore a bit of a boon that Mr Xi is not yet China's leader, a job he is expected to inherit in stages starting towards the end of this year. That freed the White House to concentrate on what officials acknowledged was more of an "investment in relationship-building" than a meeting of substance. For Mr Xi it is also a test and rite of passage. Party factions and military leaders need to be sure that their chosen man has what it takes to do business with the prevailing superpower without any hint of kowtowing.

Yesterday Mr Xi met Mr Obama in the Oval Office on Valentine's Day. He was lunched and dined by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, and called on the Pentagon, the Chamber of Commerce and Capitol Hill. But in an American election year the bonhomie has its limits. With Mitt Romney blowing hard on Mr Obama's alleged softness towards China, the administration had to toss some scolding into the mix as well. So Mr Xi was told that China's rise came with new responsibilities. The Americans want China to let its currency appreciate faster, observe the "rules of the road" on trade and intellectual property and fall in line with Western pressure on Syria. The administration is still livid about China's decision to join Russia in vetoing UN Security Council action on Syria earlier this month. And it gave Mr Xi the usual scolding about China's terrible record on human rights at home.

As for the Republicans' criticisms, has Mr Obama really been so soft on China? In the Atlantic this month, James Fallows offers a ringing defence of the president's "strategic pivot" to Asia (and a more nuanced defence of his first term as a whole):

Two years after Obama’s “humiliating” visit to Shanghai and Beijing, U.S. relations with China were a mix of cooperation and tension, as they had been through the post-Nixon years. But American relations with most other nations in the region were better than since before the Iraq War. In a visit to Australia late in 2011, Obama startled the Chinese leadership but won compliments elsewhere with the announcement of a new permanent U.S. Marine presence in Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast.

The strategy was Sun Tzu–like in its patient pursuit of an objective: re-establishing American hard and soft power while presenting a smiling “We welcome your rise!” face to the Chinese. “It was as decisive a diplomatic victory as anyone is likely to see,” Walter Russell Mead, of Bard College, often a critic of the administration, wrote about the announcement of the Australian base. “In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.”

Maybe, though citing Sun Tzu is a bit of a stretch. It is hard to see why China should be terrified by a few hundred marines training in Australia. But how much of substance has really changed in the relationship? In recent weeks China has jailed prominent dissidents and cracked down hard on protesters in Tibet and Xinjiang. Armies of censors still seal China off from large parts of the internet. The country's internal politics remain opaque: the West barely understands how President Hu Jintao gets on with his prime minister, Wen Jiabao, let alone about the mysterious recent feuding between the new cast of princelings about to take the stage. To begin with at least, Mr Xi is expected to act as first among equals inside a cautious politburo that is no less paranoid about America than America is about China.

In state visits like this, most of the speeches consist of cautious boilerplate. At the State Department's lavish and interminable lunch yesterday, your blogger's attention was in danger of wandering as he tucked into his soy-marinated Alaskan butterfish and eight-treasured rice packet. But Mr Xi did say this:

China is the world’s largest developing country, while the United States is the largest developed country. To build a new type of co-operative partnership between two countries like ours is a pioneering endeavor with great and far-reaching significance. There is no precedent for us to follow and no ready experience for us to refer to. We can only do what Mr Deng Xiaoping said, “Cross the river by feeling the stones.” Or what Secretary Clinton once quoted: “When confronted by mountains, one finds a way through. When blocked by a river, one finds a way to bridge to the other side.” A Chinese pop song goes like this: “May I ask where the path is? It is where you take your first step.”

A bit hackneyed, perhaps, but a pretty fair description of the state of affair

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We welcome your rise (sort of)

Feb 20th 2012, 05:59

Xi’s visit to America, along with the following trip to Ireland and Turkish, is truly more meaningful than Chinese incumbent president Hu Jing-tao. His route contains both public and private affairs. He successfully shows his widesperad network of friend and his perfect means of integrated business and foreign affairs. He indeed DO better than Hu who horribly purchased Boeing plane last year.

This time, Xi’s itinerary, across his past memories, present extraordinaire and future prosperity, constructs the solid relationship of America and Europe with China on the base of widespread vision. Meanwhile, many Chinese media follows this trend reporting the couple of new China’s emperor and empress; for instance, China’s Newsweek with Huan-qiu network retrospected this golden couple last week, referring to Xi’s pure thinkings praised by Xi’s wife Peng Li-yuan, a singer along with the professor in Peking University.

As Eiffel1, one of this couple’s friend, said just before, these two indeed can proudly represent China rather than Li Ke-qiang of Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) in the aspect of the controllable ability of human resource while Li, my boss in the place of CCYL’s second leader, accepts some democratic notion of western style which leads to taking steady measure to exercise politics. Therefore, Xi may take practical or say efficient policies to reign in China.

His keen interests in Chinese people and his care of the indigenous experience in China’s south-eastern coast reflects on the visit to Iowa, where some Chinese entrepreneurs led by Xi, signed long-term contracts with local enterprises like Cargill Inc. and the Archer-Daniels- Midland Co. About two years ago, I bought one of their product in Taipei city, feeling very good. So I suggested that Beijing might use smarter strategies of choosing higher level of food supply from United States or other developed countries. To do so can balance the embarrassment of China-U.S. Trade. Also, American soybean costs somewhat more but it worths providing the better choice of Chinese health and gross economy.

According to NHK World’s interview with Tom Dvorchak, who had taken him in 27 years ago, when he was a senior official of an agricultural county in Hebei Province on a tour to learn US farming techniques, Dvorchak impressed him for his seriousness in trying to learn from US agricultural practices, also for his frank and amiable characteristic while staying at his home.

In addition, Xi talked of his one of habit, watching American movies like “Godfather”, which apparently affects Beijing’s many limitations on American entertainment. According to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, on Saturday China had agreed to accept a US complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over trade barriers on films. On one side, the authority may cater Xi’s flavour; on the other side, Beijing wants to accept WTO’s suggestion improving interior moviemaker’s development by giving no impediment to foreigner movie.

His characteristic can reflect on another habit of watching Los Angeles’ Laker, NBA. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Xi is an NBA fan and especially of Kobe Bryant, the Lakers guard, the mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. Besides, Li Shaode, chairman of China Shipping (Group) Co., the nation’s second-largest shipping line, accompanied Xi and the California officials for a tour of the company’s cargo terminal. After leaving Los Angeles, Xi will fly to Ireland for an official visit. He then travels to Turkey to meet with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Feb. 21 before returning to China.

Overall, Xi’s tour to America at this time is fundamentally beneficial to American people more enormously than Hu’s last time. And Xi has more flexible pose to show the new Chinese era coming, as the pop Chinese lyrics he humorously borrowed. In the next decade, we may see the side of dragon’s soft power rising up while enjoying the benefit of this propeller advancing in the world.

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以下是筆者再次回答網友在筆者上面回文後的問題：波音機在總體經濟上是戰鬥性質的，胡錦濤當年真拼命下單厚實國力，以此親善中美關係。

Excuse me, the comparison of Xi and Hu refers to Xi's this time and "Hu's visit to America IN ABOUT ONE YEAR AGO" when HU BOUGHT BOEING PLANES, NOT 2002'S AFFAIR. But I have watched the review about your so-called visit to China rather than the horrible purchase case of Boeing in NHK World, msnbc.com and this report in Economist.

I don't know whether you mixed them together? And indeed, to compare Xi's visit to foreign countries at this time with Hu's visit ten years ago is also important, because the world is very attentive to every time's transition of China's Communist Party in Beijing. I have similar thought of your above consideration so I didn't put forward the story ten years ago. Yeah, if you mistake my comment, sorrowfully, you cannot say that these two or those two is improper for discussion. Thank you......

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這篇就是在這個月人大表決修憲，中國國家主席的任期變為可無限延長時，經濟學人雜誌指出同西方各國錯看了中國的發展方向的其中一篇之「錯看」。中國的和平崛起說在2008年北京奧運時成為北京共識通說，而當時WTO的要求中國開放影視及更大的關稅解禁範圍。當時還能中美關係進步的空間很大，在此也說明Eleanor & Tom Dvorchak及受Terry Edward Branstad招待的往事，如今Terry是川普總統任命的美國現任駐北京大使，但中美關係不會因為習的擴權及輿論的稍負面看法而短期有太大的鬆動。

透過一週內的白宮發言人Sarah Sanders回應：「The president has talked about term limits in a number of capacities during the campaign and something that he supports here in the United States, but that’s a decision that’s up to China」美國白宮比較注重中美關係總體效率和發展，這是北京自己也應該是自己決定的事而非回答範圍內，同時以公式說一直期待執政當局及中共執政當局有向民主發展推進，至於特定人的「利益」與否倒是其次，很巧妙避開問題，應該是說這連任並沒有外界想得那麼恐怖。