Only a few weeks ago President Barack Obama declared East Asia — or 'the Indo-Pacific region', as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it — to be the 'pivot' of America's foreign and security policy. This was generally seen, understandably, as a move to contain China's rising power and assertiveness, and no one thought so more than the rulers in Beijing. Meanwhile, the double veto of the UN Security Council's resolution on Syria only added to the anti-Chinese sentiment in Washington.

Yet watching the five-day visit to the United States by China's Vice-President Xi Jinping, slated to be his country's top leader later this year, and America's reaction to him has brought home to me the complexity and even variability of the US-China relationship. One must not forget that during Mr. Obama's first journey to China in November 2009, there was so much bonhomie that the US president assigned to China the role of maintaining peace and stability in South Asia and the Chinese talked of a change from G-20 to G-2. The current situation can also change.

In this context it is noteworthy that the 58-year-old Mr. Xi — who came through

the sojourn with flying colours, delighting both his interlocutors and the people in general with his easygoing, informal manner and familiarity with his host country — declared it to be a 'full success'. Many, if not most, US commentators, broadly agreed with him. Some said, however, that the 'great story' of his success was that 'there is no story in it.'

This is a shrewd assessment of a highly complex and complicated situation. Mr. Xi hadn't come to Washington — from where he travelled to Iowa largely to meet the family with which he had stayed in 1985 as a lowly Chinese functionary, and then on to Los Angeles — to discuss and solve the problems that the world's two biggest economies and military powers have with each other. As the putative president of China and General Secretary of its Communist Party, his main purpose was to introduce himself to the rulers and people of the US and get a feel for their mood.

For their part, given the huge inter-dependence of the two countries, the Americans were equally keen to get a measure of the man who, if he does achieve what almost everyone expects, will rule the world's second most powerful country for a term of ten years. No wonder he was shown every courtesy. His official host, US Vice-President Joe Biden, travelled to Los Angeles to be by Mr. Xi's side and declared that in Iowa at least the Chinese leader would win more votes than himself.

Nevertheless, the awkward — yet unavoidable — timing of the visit presented a potential difficulty: thanks to some overblown rhetoric during the current bitter election campaign, attacks on China have escalated across America. It says something for American society and its security systems that it ensured nothing untoward happened throughout Mr. Xi's stay, and he was treated with respect throughout. Apart from some Tibetans who demonstrated at a distance from the White House while the Chinese Vice-President was talking to President Obama inside, no other protestors or hecklers were seen anywhere near the honoured visitor.

Even the redoubtable Mitt Romney, still considered the front-runner in the race for Republican nomination for presidency, waited for Mr. Xi to leave American shores before declaring in a newspaper article: 'Unless China changes its ways, on day one of my presidency I will designate it a currency manipulator and take appropriate corrective action. A trade war with China is the last thing I want, but I cannot tolerate our current trade surrender.'

Despite this partisan statement, the fact remains that during a toast at a luncheon in Mr. Xi's honour, President Obama privately and Mr. Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly, raised US concerns on a variety of issues, including Chinese trade practices, currency undervaluation, copyright infringement and China's human rights record. Mr. Biden even said that cooperation could take place only amidst 'fairness'. On this occasion, as on two others, Mr. Xi's courteous answer was that China had 'reduced' its overall trade surplus and 'allowed' its currency to appreciate. He also noted that many US states were now exporting to China much more than before. On human rights, he said things were better though 'better wasn't the best'; there was 'room for improvement'.

'There is a view,' he went on to say, 'that the US is a loser in bilateral economic and trade operations and China is a winner. So far both China and the US are winners, and our co-operation is a win-win situation.' He also took the opportunity to tell the US to lift the restrictions on the export of high technology to China.
In California he made a point of emphasising that the port of Los Angeles accounted for $133 billion worth of trade with China: the largest in the world. Formerly, he added, all containers coming from China used to go back empty. Now some of them were filled by US exports to China.

While appreciating Mr. Xi's sincerity, Mr. Biden did brief the media privately that he doubted if China's new leader would be responsive to what 'we want or to most things we want.' What else he said was also revealing. According to him, Mr. Xi was 'very frank about the economic and political dilemmas he faced in China' and equally candid about 'our disagreements'.

Most interestingly, Mr. Biden disclosed that in wanting to learn 'everything he could about the US system' Mr. Xi discussed 'individual members of Congress', many of them China's critics, and explored the 'motivations behind some legislators' actions'.

Whatever the private thoughts of politicians, Mr. Xi was a big hit with the American people wherever he went. His pleasant personality and informal style have drawn comparison, both in America and back home in China, with Deng Xiaoping's 1979 visit during which China's 'paramount leader' had famously donned a 10-gallon cowboy hat to the delight of his audience. Since Mr. Xi's arrival coincided with the 40th anniversary of Nixon's visit to China, he used an ancient Chinese proverb: 'When you drink water, remember those who dug the well.'

Coverage of the Xi visit and its outcome seemed carefully calibrated. This is not to suggest that criticism of China was avoided. Several Chinese dissidents living in the US and others denounced the Chinese regime. At the same time Mr. Xi was given a big build-up and several articles had one theme: 'Defuse the Distrust with Beijing'.

Among the business deals concluded just before Mr. Xi's departure the most important was the one allowing Hollywood's Dreamworks Animation to set up shop in China. To this there were contradictory reactions that just about summed up the complexities of the US-China relationship. Critics said that the Chinese would insist on transference of animation technology which must not be permitted until China lifted its 'illegal' restrictions on the import of Hollywood films. They were reminded that China's 'quantitative restrictions' on these imports were approved when it was admitted to the World Trade Organisation. One China expert commented: 'The US-China relationship is a vast magnetic field, abounding in attractions as well as repulsions.'

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