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| Image: Flickr User - U.S. Department of State |
By Xie Tao
A state visit should be about honestly assessing the relationship, not creating the illusion of a honeymoon.
By now it has become a fairly predictable pattern.
A week or so before a state visit to the United States by the Chinese top leader, an intense media campaign will be launched to portray U.S.-China relations in the most positive light. This media blitz is called zao shi in Chinese, which can be roughly translated into English as “creating a favorable atmosphere.” Many Chinese officials (especially from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), scholars, and pundits are enlisted in the campaign. Some U.S. scholars and pundits, as well as a handful of former officials, also come out and speak in glowing terms about the bilateral relationship.
Meanwhile, as a critical component of creating a favorable atmosphere, Beijing will place a massive order of American products — usually Boeing aircrafts worth dozens of billions of dollars — before or during such a visit. Such a shopping spree is intended as a gesture of good will. For in the Confucian tradition, a guest is supposed to bring a gift to the host to show his or her appreciation of the host’s hospitality.
As a result of the media bombardment, the bilateral relationship suddenly enters into a honeymoon, albeit an artificial and short one. Disputes or tensions over Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, trade, cyber security, and the South China Sea are temporarily put aside, as if they were unpleasant memories of the past. The chorus by these officials, scholars, and pundits is a rather reassuring one: that Beijing and Washington are jointly working toward a stable and cooperative partnership, that the coming visit will set the tone for bilateral relations for the next decade, and that Beijing and Washington have never had better times.
Read the full story at The Diplomat