Chairman Hu Jintao's US Visit

'We have an enormous stake in each other's success', Mr.Obama said at the joint press conference with Mr.Hu at the White House. Very befitting to the occasion, and to our time. But what sort of a success? Mr.Hu offers to buy $45 billion worth of American goods. It may be a small portion of the $252 billion deficit in the US's China trade in 2010, but it is a demand for creating employment up to 250,000 in the US. So far so good.
At the press conference Mr.Hu said in answer to a question, and he appeared to be reading a text, that a lot still needs to be done in China in the area of human rights. As we have written on The Nobel Peace Prize 2010, the human rights record in China leaves really a lot to be desired, and we do hope for the sake of the whole humanity that Mr.Hu's comment was not simply a diplomatic lip-service prepared beforehand. At the same time we would like to ask if the US's own record is perfectly clean, and was not such as to serve political expediency. A former President, for example, who is known for his interest in this area, was, during his Presidency, a guest of the then Shah of Iran, and made comments applauding the hated monarch saying that Iran was an island of stability in the Middle East. China also maintained a close relationship with the Shah. Indeed this writer was shocked, almost terrified, to hear the Chinese Ambassador stressing that each country be allowed to have its own concept of human rights. It was in Pakistan more than a decade ago. He was the only diplomat invited to a symposium, symbolizing the special relationship of the two countries still continuing.
What we fear most is that both countries are strengthening their military muscle. It tends to involve smaller or dependent countries, Japan included. Both, Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, have violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter requesting the member nations to refrain 'from the use or threat of force'. Both are exporters of weapons. In the worst scenario the weapons have been supplied to dictatorial regimes where those weapons do kill. Fortunately a voice is increasingly heard in the US demanding a cut in the military expenditure. The US also have come to an agreement with Russia for a nuclear disarmament, if not a very satisfactory one. It is hoped that the US and China would come to an understanding for mutual military restraint, not for joint exercises. The best thing would be to hear no more of joint military exercises of any kind in the whole of Asia.