For the last year or so, American visitors to Beijing browsing among the Mao kitsch in the city's street markets have been able to choose from a rather natty line of "Oba-Mao" souvenirs – mugs, hats and T-shirts sporting a photo of their rock-star President superimposed on the face of the late Great Helmsman or one of his Red Guards.
Unfortunately for Barack Obama, these mementoes will not be available when he touches down in the Chinese capital on Monday. Ever vigilant, the country's authorities have ordered the enterprising merchants to remove the "offending" objects from sale to avoid embarrassment (it's not exactly clear to whom) during the presidential visit. That small gesture illustrates the yawning gulf in understanding separating China and the US, both at an official level and, if recent public attitude surveys are accurate, at a people-to-people level, too. One can only imagine that Mr Obama would have been tickled by the shirts had he encountered them on his scheduled sightseeing.
And so, for all the talk of a new, bipolar world, Mr Obama comes to China seeking to deepen a relationship that is clouded by a high degree of mutual misunderstanding, and at times even outright mistrust. The Chinese have a saying to describe such relationships – "one bed, different dreams" – and it's hard to imagine a more incongruous couple than Barack Obama, the smooth-talking law professor with expansive dreams for a better world, and Hu Jintao, the stiff-backed engineer-technocrat whose bywords are caution and control. Like their nations, they are cut from different cloth.
Read Full Article »