Mr. Shangkong | Pope, John Boehner and Xi Jinping: who's more important for Americans?
With the American media distracted by other events, Xi Jinping gets a lesson in US politics
How important to the US is President Xi Jinping's first state visit to America? The answer could be mixed. For the US government, Xi is of course a very important visitor. But most Americans may consider Xi just another foreign leader visiting the United States.
On Friday morning, just as US President Barack Obama was welcoming Xi to Washington, US House Speaker John Boehner announced his resignation from Congress.
Major American broadcasters that were expected to broadcast live a joint press conference by Xi and Obama at the White House switched to airing Boehner's resignation speech simply because that's what most American people would want to know about.
Does that mean Xi was not important enough to get onto the front pages of top US newspapers and occupy prime hours on American TV networks? Not really. It's more because of the very basic political nature of American society, which to a very large extent is still US-centric. That may also explain why American media had to focus more on Boehner than the top leader of the world's No2 economy.
The timing of Boehner's resignation is interesting. His position, in some respects, is like the chairman of the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body. But the NPC is not as powerful as the US Congress and the chairmanship of the NPC is usually the last job for a senior Chinese politician ahead of retirement.
Boehner's resignation did mean a lot for the landscape of US politics, which could bring some new hopes or pressures on the Obama administration, but the appointment or change of an NPC chairman would not affect the operation of the Chinese government.
