Hu Jintao in the United States. A state banquet, an economic feast, a fast in human rights
Washington (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Hu Jintao begins today its four-day visit in the United States. It is his first visit to the Obama presidency and perhaps his last as president of China, since he is due to leave office in 2013.
Unlike what happened in 2006, with his visit to George W. Bush, this time Barack Obama will host a State banquet for him at the White House. According to some rumours in the Chinese and American press Hu was unhappy with having received only a "working lunch" with the Bush administration.
In turn, Hu has also prepared a "feast" for Americans. Yesterday a group of 120 Chinese entrepreneurs arrived in Houston (Texas), along with Wang Chao, vice-minister of commerce, to sign trade agreements to the tune of 600 billion dollars. Similar meetings are planned this week in Washington, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Raleigh (N. Carolina), Frankfort (Kentucky).
The major Chinese commercial deals aim to appease the United States which in recent days has pushed Beijing to appreciate the value of the Yuan, held far below its real value to facilitate Chinese exports. In an interview with American newspapers, Hu explained his opposition to the remodelling of the Yuan and described the international trading system based on the dollar as "a product of the past."
Other contentious issues include the Korean question, where Beijing is seen as Pyongyang’s “overlord”, the Iranian nuclear program, where Beijing blocks any escalation of sanctions, decisions to be made for climate change, with China refusing to sign binding agreements.
To coincide with the State Banquet, scheduled for tomorrow evening, many activist groups are preparing demonstrations outside the White House. Christian group calling for freedom for Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Laureate, condemned by China as a criminal for his writings on democracy. They plan to welcome Hu Jintao with an empty chair in memory of the absence of the writer at the Oslo awards ceremony. Tibetan groups will instead dance with the skeletons. They accuse Hu of having "skeletons in the closets," including the deaths of thousands of Tibetans under martial law ordered by Hu Jintao in '89, when he was party secretary in Tibet.
Chai Ling, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen movement, recently converted to Christianity, will hold a press conference for the organization, "All Girls Allowed ", against the one-child rule and the plague of selective abortion of female foetuses in China.
In 2006, during the final press conference of Bush and Hu, a woman stood up and shouted "Murderer" at the Chinese president, accusing him of allowing the killing of thousands of members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.
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10/11/2008
