Plan B Forum

The heir apparent to the Chinese leadership, Xi Jinping, made a much-heralded trip to the US last week.

In an effort to put a happy, younger-generation face on the forbidding American image of China's Communist Party leaders, the 58-year-old visited a farm, climbed into a tractor, and went to a basketball game.

The Obama administration put out the reddest of red carpet for him. Barack Obama feted Xi at the White House, Hillary Clinton invited him to give an address at the State Department, and the Pentagon honoured him with a 19-gun salute. Xi (pronounced shee) is expected to assume China's presidency next year, but in Washington he was treated as if he were already in the job.

It was a shrewd investment. Even Chinese dictators have an eye to public opinion. It's one of the reasons the Chinese Communist Party remains in power even as long-ruling dictators are torn down in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen or yield power in Burma. Xi is little-known in China. His main source of fame is his wife, Peng Liyuan, a popular folk singer in the People's Liberation Army. Her singing is so good that she has been promoted to the rank of major general.
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Xi's American tour was to prepare him for his future post, but it was also a beauty parade to show him to advantage to his home audience. It was a presidential election campaign with Chinese characteristics.

One favourite moment was when he told American politicians his response to their complaints about human rights in China. He said that China had made enormous progress in human rights over the past 30 years. He punctuated this with an advertising slogan for a Chinese electronics chain: "There is no best, only better."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/ ... z1mxYHRUf5

China had made enormous progress in human rights over the past 30 years.

Peng Liyuan, a popular folk singer in the People's Liberation Army. Her singing is so good that she has been promoted to the rank of major general.