Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on January 18, 2011

Pres. Obama bows to Chinese President Hu Jintao | Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

We’re getting used to this bowing nonsense of POTUS… regrettably we’re getting used to it, like resigning ourselves and getting used to an aging family dog with bladder control issues that just can’t help but piddle all over the carpet. Groan — metaphorical bowing to the tyrannical Castro brothers is far worse than piddling.

For some of Barack’s previous embarrassing bows, check here, here, and here.

This most recent bow is being called a “courtesy bow” by Washington Times. Notice in the photo how Hu keeps his back rod straight. Obama’s “courtesy” bow is more like a “Yep, I’m a beta dog” bow. Reagan would never have bowed…

Those cheeky rascals at Spend Matters did some brainstorming today, wondering What Did Obama Say After the Bow to Chinese President Hu Jintao? Here’s some of their delectable possibilities:

1. “Wind and solar power…I defer to you.”
2. “Now about that small matter of intellectual property…”
3. “We’d be delighted to have your SOEs buy off our companies. Want a bank or two?”
4. “When do I get my red phone?”
5. “I agree, the RMB should be the world reserve currency.”
6. “Pleeeeease appreciate your currency!!”
7. “No need to hack our corporate systems this week. Everything you requested is on the USB drive in my pocket.”
8. “I’ll sweeten the next treasury offering by agreeing to personally sing a tune on KTV.”
9. “If you plan to use our technology to beat us in our own market, we would be delighted for you to bid on that rail project in California.”
10. “You can have Taiwan if you personally autograph my copy of the Art of War.”
11. “Want to sail aboard QE2 back to Beijing?”
12. “Xie Xie! Thank you! Thank you!”
13. “I’ve told Joe to spit around the White House today to make you feel more at home.”
14. “I’ll trade you a pack of my personal Camels for some more rare earths.”

Chinese President Hu Jintao landed at Andrews Air Force base for his state visit to the United States — in the AP video below, he was welcomed upon his arrival by VP Joe Biden and a military color guard.

Associated Press: Raw Video: China’s Leader Hu Arrives in U.S. | January 2011

From FOX News, Obama Needs to Give China’s Hu a Reality Check at This Week’s State Visit:

Two years after President Obama’s inauguration, his administration faces a significant sobriety check with this week’s visit of China’s president followed by President Obama’s State of the Union address next week.

At first glance, these two events might appear related only in terms of a coincidence of timing. In fact, both will tell us a great deal about President Obama’s leadership and his ability to adjust to new strategic realities. The administration’s decision to host a state visit for the president of the People’s Republic of China under current circumstances is interesting and risky.

It is unusual timing for China’s leader to come to Washington. A new Congress has been sworn in, but still not fully settled, and anxiously awaits the first formal signal of how the president intends to deal with them. Far and away the top priorities in the new political landscape are controlling debt, expanding employment, and reviving American competitiveness. In this context, high profile focus on China would not seem to favor either China or the Obama administration.

In fact, China’s leader comes to town with a relatively limited agenda.

President Hu Jintao is entering the twilight of his two terms in office and seeks to demonstrate to other Chinese leaders that he commands appropriate respect from the United States. This is measured primarily in terms of symbolism and avoidance of criticism.

From Associated Press, Obama and Hu share intimate dinner at White House:

WASHINGTON – Eager to soothe tensions, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao shared an unusual and intimate dinner Tuesday night to discuss the strains and common goals that define the complicated relations between the two rival powers.

The private dinner, in the Old Family Dining Room in the White House residence, came amid disputes over China’s currency, trade and human rights policies and a search for cooperation on national security. It preceded a planned pomp-filled gala for Hu on Wednesday night and illustrated Obama’s careful mix of warmth and firmness for the leader of a nation that is at once the largest U.S. competitor and most important potential partner.

Also at the dinner were national security adviser Tom Donilon and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Hu brought along two top Chinese officials. Underscoring the desire for candor, the White House said there were no official note-takers at the dinner and offered no readout of the discussions.

From Washington Times, Who Needs Hu:

Hu Jintao, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and China’s unelected president, arrives in the United States today for a summit meeting with President Obama. The White House is downplaying expectations for the meeting. Good move.

The human-rights discussion is likely to be frosty because Mr. Hu’s track record is grim. He presided over a 1989 crackdown in Tibet in which Chinese security forces killed hundreds of Tibetans, an event recognized when the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. The current Nobel peace laureate, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, also ruthlessly suppressed, and was jailed by Mr. Hu in 2008 for his work advocating human rights. Democratization, Internet censorship, persecution of Christians and Falun Gong and reform in North Korea will see no progress at this summit. China’s military modernization efforts will continue apace.

Economic controversies will be center stage. Mr. Hu recently said, “The current international currency system is a thing of the past,” though it clearly works to China’s advantage. Beijing has kept the value of the yuan artificially low, giving Chinese exports unfair advantage in the international marketplace and punishing countries seeking to export to the mainland. China also holds close to a trillion dollars in U.S. debt, a key point of leverage for Beijing given the Obama administration’s debt-fueled fiscal policies.

Categories: Government, International Relations, Social and Political Climate, Videos, Audio Files
Tags: Barack Obama, Biden, bowing, Castro, China, Chinese, Chinese leader, Chinese president, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Hu Jintao, Joe Biden, Obama, Obama bow, Obama bows, Obama bows to Chinese president, Obama bows to Hu, Pres. Hu, Pres. Hu Jintao, Pres. Obama, state visit, VP Biden, world news