Chinese President Hu Jintao is preparing for his first visit to the United States that will commence on September 7. This is the first time that US President George Bush is expected to confront Hu on pending issues such as rising trade friction, the North Korea nuclear crisis, Taiwan and the dire human rights situation in China.
The visit follows trade tension between the two countries over energy, textiles, Chinese counterfeiting and China’s exchange rate policies.
Although the US and China have co-operated on the Beijing-hosted six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear arms programs, some analysts believe there is still much to be resolved.
“If Hu Jintao and Bush have a vision, they should talk about the future picture, which depends not on China’s rise, but how China rises,” said Brookings Institution scholar Jing Huang. He also said the visit “comes at a time when China has reached a crossroad in its rise”. The crossroad is perhaps between the lagging political reforms and rapid economic growth.
Washington has been increasingly discontented with China’s currency revaluation that failed to address US-China trade deficit despite last year’s record $130 million trade gap. Congress also recently rejected China’s state-run CNOOC bid to buy the US oil firm Unocal.
Some US critics have expressed their concern over China’s relationship with the repressive regimes of Iran, Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan, which fell under scrutiny in recent months for violent suppression of their citizens.
Last week the Chinese regime raised a few eyebrows in Washington following its weeklong military exercise with Russia. Also in the same week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with The New York Times, raised concerns about Beijing’s military, human rights and trade policies.
Human rights groups have already begun to prepare for large-scale activities to take place during Hu’s seven-day visit. Issues to be covered will be the lack of religious and media freedom, the political crackdown in Tibet and the forced repatriation of North Korean refugees.
On his US visit it is also anticipated that Hu will face American practitioners of Falun Gong, who are expected to appeal for the end of the six-year long persecution of its practitioners inside China.
In a bid to neutralise some of the criticism of Beijing’s rule before Hu visits the US, the Chinese Government has announced that it will allow the UN rapporteur on torture to enter the country.
However, analysts remain sceptical over how much genuine access the rapporteur will be given to investigate human rights abuses, especially when last year the World Psychiatric Association’s independent investigation into China’s psychological torture was cancelled last-minute, despite two years of prior negotiations.
Hu’s week-long schedule consists of meeting with congressional leaders and local officials, giving a speech at Yale University, addressing the UN Congressional Committee in New York and visiting businesspeople in Seattle. He will also travel to Mexico and Canada.
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