WASHINGTON -- Chinese President Hu Jintao promised President Bush long-term economic reforms yesterday but offered no immediate concessions on the trade and security issues that threaten the two countries' relationship.
Hailed with a 21-gun salute on a sunlit White House lawn, Hu declared that China was committed to overhauling gradually the export-driven economy that has piled up a $202 billion trade surplus with the United States and brought calls in Congress for protectionist retaliation.
But Hu stopped short of the quick action the Bush administration and some in Congress have sought on currency reform and intellectual property protection. He also offered Bush no specific new help in dealing with the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.
Chinese hopes of boosting Hu's domestic standing with a carefully choreographed White House ceremony were set back when an activist from the outlawed Falun Gong religious sect interrupted the first several minutes of the Chinese president's formal remarks with heckling. President Bush looked on with visible anger as Secret Service officers removed the woman, who was allowed access to a press viewing stand as a reporter for the group's international newspaper, the Epoch Times.
The woman, identified as Wang Wenyi, 47, screamed, "President Hu, your days are numbered," and told Bush, "Make him stop persecuting Falun Gong."
Bush apologizes
Later, as they began a 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office, Bush told Hu that the incident was unfortunate and that he was sorry it had taken place, U.S. officials said later. Hu responded "graciously," one official said, but another U.S. official acknowledged concern that the Chinese would be angered that a White House lapse had damaged the event.
A White House official defended the admission of the activist, saying she had submitted proper credentials. "We can't go around denying access to reporters when we're going around the world trumpeting that to do so is incorrect," said the official, who declined to be identified because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject.
The meeting on the lawn was marred by another gaffe when a White House announcer, treading on a sensitive subject, said over a loudspeaker that the band was about to play the national anthem of the "Republic of China." That is the official name of Taiwan, the self-governing island off the coast of mainland China that Beijing views as a renegade province. Mainland China is called the People's Republic of China.
