News Analysis
China’s Leader Has Message of Harmony, but Limited Agenda
By IAN JOHNSON
Published: January 18, 2011
BEIJING — For the Obama administration, the four-day visit by President Hu Jintao of China may offer a platform to try to make progress on issues troubling their countries: currency, the trade imbalance, human rights and China’s military stance. But Mr. Hu arrives with a comparatively low-key message, intoning his favorite idea: harmony.
Enlarge This Image
Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
American and Chinese flags on display near the Capitol dome in Washington on Tuesday ahead of the visit by President Hu Jintao of China.
Readers' Comments
Over the past few years, that has become a catchword of his administration, used especially often when Mr. Hu is confronted with thorny situations that elude ready solutions, like domestic social unrest or a rising China’s impact on the outside world. In China, the term is sometimes used ironically as a verb to describe Web sites that suddenly disappear, “harmonized away,” and officially as a goal, a “harmonious society.”
That is also the goal for the difficult relations between the world’s two most powerful nations. In comments given before he left, Mr. Hu emphasized the common interests of the United States and China and “solemnly” pledged peace and cooperation.
“China and the United States have major influence in international affairs and shoulder important responsibilities in upholding world peace and promoting common development,” Mr. Hu said in a written answer to questions posed by journalists from the United States.
Some analysts say that this reflects a weakened President Hu. After a year of foreign policy missteps that have allowed the United States to regain influence in Asia, Mr. Hu is also on his way out. Even authoritarian countries have lame ducks, and Mr. Hu is expected to be replaced in less than two years.
“He wants to go out with the country’s most important bilateral relationship intact,” said a Western diplomat based in Beijing who spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of the subject.
But Mr. Hu’s calm also reflects a more confident China. As a Chinese scholar at Indiana University, Scott Kennedy, noted in a recent essay, Mr. Hu’s comments are at odds with his host’s.
“His description of China took it as a given that China is a leading global power and a central member of the international system,” Mr. Kennedy wrote of Mr. Hu, “and such standing is not conditional on U.S. approval.”
China has also emphasized the need to allow Mr. Hu to enjoy all the trappings of a formal state visit. Chinese officials are still smarting from a decision by the Bush administration not to call his first visit as president five years ago a state visit. The administration then botched the White House reception for the Chinese leader, confusing China’s national anthem for the one of its arch rival, Taiwan, and allowing a protester to heckle Mr. Hu while he spoke to a crowd on the South Lawn.
Obama administration officials say that this time, as Mr. Hu prepares for a transition to retirement, the logistics or ceremonial aspects of his trip have in some ways eclipsed the policy items on the bilateral agenda.
His trip begins with the expected: a dinner with President Obama on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday a formal arrival ceremony, bilateral meetings and a joint news conference, followed by more socializing and a state dinner at the White House.
But it gets more interesting. On Thursday, he talks again to a lobby group, the usually sympathetic US-China Business Council, which will be looking for Mr. Hu to toss some bones to American companies. Then he goes on to Chicago — a visit to Mr. Obama’s adopted hometown, but also a chance to show China’s rising role in the world.
Mr. Hu will visit a Chinese-owned auto parts plant and apparently also the Confucius Institute in Chicago, one of the cultural centers that China has been establishing around the world — as part of a “soft power” offensive that Beijing has pursued for a few years.
This is the real message of the trip: despite all the huff and puff, China and its sometimes maddeningly opaque system, with its somewhat colorless leaders, is here to stay.
\
China Plants Its Image on Times Square
By LORETTA CHAO
BEIJING—When many Americans think of China, they think of a rising rival accused of manipulating its currency and siphoning U.S. jobs. China's government wants them to think of sports stars, Internet entrepreneurs, and astronauts.
As President Hu Jintao begins his visit to the U.S. this week, China is blitzing America with a flashy television ad that mixes images of ordinary Chinese citizens with celebrities like NBA star Yao Ming, Web tycoon Jack Ma, and a quartet of fashion models. The minute-long video is scheduled to run on CNN and to be shown 300 times a day—once every four minutes during peak periods—on the giant display in New York's Times Square from now until Feb. 14.
The ad is part of China's broader push in recent years to use its culture and people to ease international fears about its rise. That use of "soft power"—as scholars describe it, in contrast to the hard power afforded by economic, geopolitical and military clout—will also be highlighted during Mr. Hu's trip by his visit to a Chinese government-sponsored language-learning center at a Chicago high school—part of a vast global network of so-called Confucius Institutes designed to spread the use of Mandarin.
China's government was long neglectful of its image overseas, but in recent years it has invested billions of dollars to promote its viewpoints and polish its reputation. In addition to the new commercial and increasing numbers of Confucius Institutes, Chinese state-run media companies are expanding overseas as well. China Daily, the government English-language newspaper, launched a U.S. edition in 2009. Xinhua news agency started an English-language TV news service last year, and state broadcaster China Central Television recently announced a new English-language documentary channel that will showcase films about China for foreign audiences.
The efforts come as China's policies and actions are coming under increasing international scrutiny and criticism, from its military advances to its exchange-rate policies to its handling of deadly antigovernment riots in Tibet in 2008 and the 11-year prison sentence it gave dissident Liu Xiaobo, who as awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in absentia at a December ceremony.
The image push has expanded enormously in just the five years since Mr. Hu last visited the U.S., in April 2006. To use one measure: China had fewer than 10 Confucius Institutes in the U.S. that year. Today, there are more than 100 institutes and similar Confucius Classrooms in the U.S.—and hundreds more in other countries. The institutes are sponsored, and partly funded, by an arm of China's Ministry of Education called the Hanban, which cooperates with schools and universities around the world.
But like so much in China, the soft-power push is led by the government, and it is unclear how much impact it is having wooing American hearts and minds. A survey of 1,503 Americans by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 58% want to build a stronger relationship with China, but 65% see China as either an "adversary" or a "serious problem."
Marketing experts say the state-led approach has limits. While the Chinese government clearly recognizes the value of soft power, it should promote things "which are happening culturally and spontaneously" within the country, such as its vibrant art scene, says Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Chief Executive Miles Young. He says other nations like South Korea and Japan have gained global cultural influence by embracing contemporary, ground-up cultural development in addition to government-led initiatives, helping to boost their creative credibility.
The Times Square commercial was ordered up by China's State Council Information Office and produced by a Chinese agency, Shanghai Lintas Advertising. Chinese officials couldn't be reached to comment and Lintas Advertising declined to comment.
The ad appears designed to put a human face on relations with China, quite literally, scrolling through a series of still images of Chinese people—China's first astronaut in space, a pair of film directors, a state-owned enterprise executive—under titles like "Cutting-Edge Chinese Agriculture" and "Award-Winning Chinese talent." "Chinese friendship," the screen says as it ends.
Initial reviews of the ad are mixed. Tom Doctoroff, director of the north Asia area for WPP Group's JWT ad agency, said the commercial ad is "a good first step." "China is demonstrating an awareness that it needs to forge a more trustful relationship with other countries and cultures," he said. But the spot a more effective message for China to present would have been one about how it can integrate with the rest of the world. "The question on people's minds is how do we form a harmonious 21st century with China standing side-by-side the West, each complementing one another?"
It's "a perfect example of saying what you want to say rather than saying what the audience needs to hear," said David Wolf, chief executive of Wolf Group Asia, a Beijing-based marketing strategy firm. He said the ad misfires by calling attention to some of the very aspects of modern China that put Americans on edge.
Mr. Wolf says that "they are trying to flaunt their material strengths, which worry America, rather than try to bridge the gap of misunderstanding," He added that "Instead of saying, 'we are your friends,' the ads are saying 'Hello, America. Be very afraid.' "
