Chicago Chinese President Hu Jintao's just-concluded summit with President Barack Obama was a win both for the Communist Party and for Hu himself, demonstrating once again the Chinese government's reliance on ceremony to bolster its standing among its people.
China's state-run newspapers ran enormous photographs of Hu with Obama, a not-so-subtle message that China is now the United States' equal on the world stage.
For the Obama administration, the meeting went smoothly and yielded some progress on difficult issues — but it also served as a reminder that the US-China relationship will continue to be among Washington's most nettlesome.
"The most important thing they did was, for the time being, put a floor under the relationship after a very bad year," said Michael Green, a former National Security Council senior official.
Core interests
"No one expected a transformational summit, but if you graded it pass-fail, I say they passed."
The Chinese side, as it often does during summits, brought its chequebook, inking deals for aircraft and other heavy machinery, agricultural products and software that could be worth $45 billion (Dh165.51 billion) for US firms.
China also indicated that it would give US companies better treatment and do more to protect their intellectual property. And on the hot-button issues of human rights and North Korea, the Chinese side showed a small amount of flexibility, which US officials interpreted as a good sign.
In addition, the Obama administration succeeded in righting what many in the administration saw to be an error during the last US-China summit, in Beijing in November 2009 — the United States' acknowledgment of China's "core interests" in Tibet and Taiwan.
Joint statement
That term figured prominently in a joint statement issued in 2009. It was not repeated in the communique released on Wednesday.
More broadly, Obama and other members of his Cabinet seem to have succeeded in conveying a message to China that they had no intention of backing down in the face of China's aggressive foreign policy over the past 18 months. "The administration wanted to make China understand that it needed to rein in its irrational exuberance," said Daniel Kliman, a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security, "that it would stand firm when necessary".
In the balance between symbolism and substance, symbolism prevailed. There was little progress on the Obama administration's goal of pushing China to allow the value of its currency to rise — which would potentially make US exports more attractive.
Many of the economic deals and commitments will take months or years to carry through. And on the issues of uniting to stop nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea, the two sides continue to differ on tactics and, indeed, strategy, although the two Koreas agreed this week to hold high-level military talks, a step both China and the United States support.
Hu, who left Washington on Thursday and travelled to Chicago for events to highlight the study of Mandarin and China's investments in the United States, spent the summit sticking closely to his script and Chinese bromides about "partnership based on mutual respect and benefit".
