When China's President Hu Jintao came for his state visit last week, the White House press corps completely ignored almost all the substantive issues raised by Hu's visit. The domestic policy issues raised by this trip were altogether invisible in the reporting in major news outlets.
The news accounts were filled with the long list of items that President Obama was likely to raise with President Hu. There are issues about China respecting the patents and copyrights of US firms. The US has concerns about market access in China for our retailers, our financial firms and some of our manufactured products.
And then there are issues about the relative value of the dollar and yuan. Yep, the White House press corps got together the whole list, presented it to the public, and then went home and had a drink.
If these reporters actually had to cover the news to get a paycheck, then this checklist of concerns would have been just the beginning of their job. It's great for the Obama administration to come up with a wishlist that it would like from China's leadership. But this is not Disney World. China doesn't hand the United States everything on its wishlist.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/23/china-hu-jintao