President Obama’s joint press appearance with President Hu of China today seemed to involve the American trying to say very little that might cause offence, and the Chinese leader trying to say almost nothing at all.
Neither took questions from reporters at the end of this stage-managed tour, which has been likened by some to an embarrassed debtor visiting his bank manager: China is the largest foreign holder of US government bonds and enjoys a trade surplus with the US.
So it was no wonder the president sounded as if he was courting rather than cajoling his hosts. True, he did ask them to talk to the Dalai Lama, and he told students in Shanghai yesterday that “I think the more freely information flows, the stronger society becomes”. But this was predominantly about the current superpower paying its respects to the emerging one.
The Chinese said little of much substance. If they still seem in search of a voice on the world stage, maybe it is because they negotiate a tortuous path – worrying about what message to send back to their own cloistered people, while to outsiders they risk sounding as if they only care about themselves.
As for the Americans, well, they believe their values are so universal that the world stage is naturally theirs.