The New York Times reports:
Whether by White House design or Chinese insistence, President Obama has steered clear of public meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates and even ordinary Chinese during his first visit to China, showing deference to the Chinese leadership’s aversions to such interactions that is unusual for a visiting American president.
Mr. Obama held a “town hall” meeting with students on Monday. But they were carefully vetted and prepped for the event by the government, participants said.
And we are reminded that in contrast to his predecessors’ far less cringey performances, Obama has bent over backward to be innocuous. “Bland” and “rather humble” is how Chinese students described him. The Times explained that “Mr. Obama’s nuanced references to rights have shied from citing China’s spotty record, even when offered the chance. Asked Monday in Shanghai to discuss China’s censorship of the Internet, the president replied by talking about America’s robust political debates.” And worse yet, it seems that the Obami have snubbed democracy dissidents (“the administration rejected proposals for brief meetings in Beijing with Chinese political activists, and then with lawyers”) for fear of annoying their hosts.
Since the video love letter to the Supreme Leader at the start of his presidency, we have seen a string of signals and actions designed to make America appear more contrite and more accommodating to the world’s despots. This visit is not the only shabby and embarrassing display of timidity by this president, nor I suspect will it be the last. Obama’s unwillingness to assert with strength and conviction American interests and to challenge the atrocious human-rights records of thuggish regimes around the world has not gone unnoticed by his Chinese hosts and, no doubt, by other nations noting how they, too, might receive such kid-glove treatment. The Obami are convinced that this is the way to endear ourselves to our adversaries. History teaches us that the world doesn’t work that way.