Michelle Obama decides not to attend crucial US-China summit

Daily News Article   —   Posted on June 6, 2013

(By Peter Foster, Washington and Tom Phillips in Shanghai, Daily Telegraph) – It had been hoped that this weekend’s crucial summit between Barack Obama and newly appointed President Xi Jinping at a Californian ranch might inject a new warmth into US-China relations.

However, those hopes suffered an early setback on Wednesday when the White House announced that Michelle Obama would not be joining her husband in attending the two-day meeting with China’s new president and his wife.

Her office cited domestic responsibilities for not attending – it is the last week of the school year for the Obamas’ daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, – but the move leaves China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan, to attend the summit without her American counterpart.

China experts immediately warned that Mrs Obama’s decision to stay in Washington could have an unwelcome chilling effect on a summit that White House officials have billed as an “unprecedented” opportunity to heal divisions between the world two biggest economies.

Her absence is likely to limit Ms Peng’s role at the two-day California meeting and may be interpreted by the face-conscious Chinese bureaucrats and public as a deliberate snub, both US and Chinese analysts said.

The Chinese public had hoped that their country’s first lady would dazzle the American public during this summit at the Sunnylands ranch in Palm Springs which opens on Friday and in which both sides have trumpeted as a bid to kick-start more constructive relations.

Zhang Ming, a political scientist from China’s Renmin University, predicted Mrs Obama’s absence would “not go down very well” in Beijing.

“First lady diplomacy is also very important and the US side has failed to cooperate,” he said. “According to normal diplomatic etiquette this is very strange. It shouldn’t be like this.

“Maybe Michelle [Obama] doesn’t like Xi Jinping – or maybe she is just really busy,” Prof Zhang speculated. “But being busy shouldn’t be an excuse for missing an event like this.” Several leading US commentators agreed. “Michelle Obama not attending the summit is a diplomatic own-goal that could easily have been avoided,” wrote Dan Drezner, professor of international politics at Tuft’s University in Boston in Foreign Policy.

“This is one of the few moments during her husband’s term of office where what she does matters a small amount to world politics. She should be in California.” Communist Party bosses had seen the meeting as a golden opportunity to deploy Peng Liyuan’s much-vaunted charms on the world stage in a bid to spin a more favorable image of China’s leaders, after a decade with the stiff, protocol obsessed former president Hu Jintao in charge.

Ms Peng, an elegant and much-loved PLA singer [PLA is the Communist People’s Liberation Army], has taken center-stage during president Xi’s ongoing tour of Latin America and the Caribbean, exchanging hi-fives with children and playing the steel drums in Trinidad and Tobago.

“First lady turns on the charm, impresses hosts,” the Chinese government’s state-run China Daily enthused on Tuesday, noting that the 50-year-old soprano had made an impact “not just with her music, but also her kindness and language capability.” Cheng Li, an expert in Chinese politics from Washington’s Brookings Institution, told the New York Times the Chinese would “readily” accept Mrs Obama’s family commitments but said her decision “certainly needs some explanation.” The Chinese were “extremely sensitive”, Prof Cheng added.

Both governments have invested very heavily in the shirt-sleeves summits which comes as both countries begin a new political cycle.

Relations between the two powers have been strained in recent years over trade disputes, allegations of Chinese cyber espionage and America’s decision to be more assertive in the Asia-Pacific region – a move the Chinese resent.

White House officials have played up the huge strategic importance of the talks which they said were aimed at deepening personal relations between the two leaders and developing a mechanism to avoid the “historic inevitability” of a clash between rising and sitting super powers.

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