President Hu Jintao to Visit the U.S.
Yesterday, the White House announced that President Hu Jintao will make a State visit to the U.S. on Wednesday, January 19, 2011. President Hu’s visit is long overdue; at the end of President Barack Obama’s State visit to China in November 2009, it was expected that President Hu would visit the U.S. by the summer of 2010.
Needless to say, President Hu’s visit will come at an interesting time. The State visit was not the only China-related news that the Administration announced on Wednesday; the Obama Administration also supported the United Steelworkers’ contention that China is illegally subsidizing its wind turbine industry by filing a suit in with the World Trade Organization. And as trade issues continue to plague U.S.-China relations, North Korea’s recent bellicose actions against the South reflect the importance of China in maintaining peace in Asia while North Korea undergoes a leadership change. Given the importance of the two nations to each other as well as to the rest of the world, a one-day State visit seems a bit short. It will be interesting to see what deliverables emerge from the visit.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 22, 2010
Statement by the Press Secretary on the Visit of President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China
The President will host Hu Jintao, President of the People’s Republic of China, at the White House on January 19 for an official State visit. This will be the third State visit of the administration and reciprocates President Obama’s State visit to China in November 2009.
President Hu’s visit will highlight the importance of expanding cooperation between the United States and China on bilateral, regional, and global issues, as well as the friendship between the peoples of our two countries. The President looks forward to welcoming President Hu to Washington to continue building a partnership that advances our common interests and addresses our shared concerns.
The President and Mrs. Obama will host President Hu for an official state dinner on the night of January 19.
###
Anyone who cares about honoring our war dead and bringing solace to their families by returning their remains should vehemently protest Chinese President Hu’s upcoming state visit to the US. Due to pressure from his government, the US and Indian Governments were forced to cancel the only US MIA remains recovery operation in India scheduled for 2010. The location of this operation is a US Army Air Force B-24 crash site in the Northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which borders on China and which China has been claiming as its own. Notwithstanding the fact that the Singh Government and the Obama Administration (in the person of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy) have displayed amazing timidity by kowtowing to this Chinese pressure, the Chinese Government’s attitude toward this purely humanitarian operation adds another page to the the massive collection of Chinese Communist human rights abuses.
The meetings of the two leaders are usually full of accusations of each other’s economic policies so let’s hope this time they’ll finally devote attention to the possible ways of cooperation.