WHEN PRESIDENT Hu Jintao visited Capitol Hill yesterday, congressmen and women who had earlier roared like tigers greeted the Chinese leader like mice.
New York Timescolumnist Nicholas Kristof, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, and who attended Wednesday night's state dinner at the White House, says American opinion on China is divided between "panda huggers" and "panda muggers".
The former are dazzled by the Chinese El Dorado: an economy that grew 10.3 per cent last year and represents 1.3 billion consumers. The latter are disgusted by China’s human rights record and believe Beijing has rigged the economic game in its own favour.
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, some of the muggers morphed into huggers.
China-bashing was a favourite theme in last year’s mid-term election campaign. The Kantar Media Campaign Analysis Group, quoted by Bloomberg news, says Democrats and Republicans spent close to $68 million on 202 advertisements criticising China.
Nancy Pelosi, now the Democratic minority leader in the House, demonstrated on Tiananmen Square in 1991. In December, Ms Pelosi made her last official journey as speaker to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for the imprisoned writer Liu Xiaobo. On Wednesday night, Ms Pelosi attended the state dinner for Mr Hu, who has been dubbed “Mr Who?” by diplomats here. In a closed-door meeting with Congressional leaders yesterday, Ms Pelosi raised Mr Liu’s fate with Mr Hu. She refused to discuss his answer with reporters but another Representative called it “evasive”.
On Tuesday, the Senate majority leader Harry Reid called Mr Hu a “dictator” in an interview in Las Vegas. Yesterday, Mr Reid greeted Mr Hu outside the Senate chamber with an unctuous smile and handshake, pulling the Chinese leader aside so reporters could not hear their conversation.
Journalists were packed in behind a rope, told “no questions” and warned they’d be removed if they “misbehaved”.
In the event, Dana Bash of CNN shouted to Senator Reid: “What do you expect to accomplish from the man you called a dictator?” Whereupon the press were ushered out.
At a House foreign affairs committee briefing on China the previous day, one representative called Mr Hu an “oppressor” and “murderer” and criticised President Barack Obama for welcoming his “monstrous regime”. Another said China was fixated on “world domination”. But yesterday’s lunch, where Mr Hu delivered the keynote address to the National Committee on US-China Relations and the US-China Business Council, was a pushover.
In the afternoon, Mr Hu left for Chicago, the only other stop on his US itinerary. Chicagoans are definitely in the panda-hugging category. Mayor Richard Daley, who also attended Wednesday’s state dinner, said Mr Hu’s visit was “a big deal, a big, big, big deal” for his city.
Mr Daley has visited China four times in seven years, and wants Chicago to surpass California as China’s gateway to the US. Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has four direct flights to China daily.
Bill Daley, Mr Obama’s new chief of staff and Mayor Daley’s brother, helped China join the World Trade Organisation and when he was Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary also helped it achieve most-favoured nation trading status.
In Chicago, the Chinese delegation was to meet with more business executives, sign more contracts and visit Walter Payton College Prep, a state-run school which started teaching Mandarin 12 years ago.
The language is offered in 42 Chicago schools now, and is the second most popular, after Spanish. Three hundred Chicago-based companies have offices in China, while 30 Chinese companies have set up in Chicago.
Several of the congressional leaders who graciously received Mr Hu yesterday had declined an invitation to the state dinner the previous evening.
Among the 225 guests were former presidents Clinton and Carter, at least three former secretaries of state and some of the country’s richest bankers and best-known entertainers.
Panda bears have been a symbol of relations between the two countries since Chairman Mao Zedong gave Richard Nixon two pandas in 1972. But the animals always remain the property of China, and must eventually be repatriated.
In his “tribute to the bonds between two great nations and two proud peoples” on Wednesday night, Mr Obama won applause when he announced that Beijing has extended the stay of two giant pandas at the Washington Zoo for five more years.