After my last iReport, I figured that I'd just post an article from the NY Times Asian/Pacific Section. I found the entire article to be interesting in light of previous presidential visits from both Republican and Democrat presidents. I've posted a relevant section here and I have included the link at the bottom.

BEIJING — Whether by White House design or Chinese insistence, President Obama has steered clear of public meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates and even ordinary Chinese during his first visit to China, showing a deference to the Chinese leadership’s aversions to such interactions that is unusual for a visiting American president.

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Mr. Obama held a “town hall” meeting with students on Monday. But the students were carefully vetted and prepped for the event by the government, participants said. And the Chinese authorities, wielding a practiced mix of censorship and diplomatic pressure, succeeded in limiting Mr. Obama’s exposure to a point where a third of some 40 Beijing university students interviewed Tuesday were unaware that he had just met in Shanghai with their colleagues.

Some students who were aware cast him in terms rarely applied to American leaders, like “rather humble” and “bland.”

“Is America being capricious because their economic difficulties force them to be nicer to China and other countries, or is this a genuine change?” asked Liu Ziqi, 18, a freshman at the University of International Business and Economics. “I don’t know.”

This is no longer the United States-China relationship of old but an encounter between a weakened giant and a comer with a bit of its own swagger. Washington’s comparative advantage in past meetings is now diminished, a fact clearly not lost on the Chinese.

Human rights is the prime example. In 1998, President Bill Clinton staged a nationally broadcast discussion with the president at the time, Jiang Zemin, about human rights, the Dalai Lamaand perhaps China’s most taboo topic, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In 2002, President George W. Bush stressed liberty, the rule of law and faith in a speech to university students broadcast across China.

When Mr. Obama visited Moscow in July, he met with opposition political activists and journalists, and he publicly questioned the prosecution of an anti-Kremlin businessman.

In China, by contrast, Mr. Obama’s nuanced references to human rights have shied from citing China’s spotty record, even when offered the chance. Asked Monday in Shanghai to discuss China’s censorship of the Internet, the president replied by talking about America’s robust political debates.

American scholars and activists, who demanded anonymity for fear of damaging relations with the White House, said the administration rejected proposals for brief meetings in Beijing with Chinese political activists, and then with lawyers.

American officials did consider organizing meetings between Mr. Obama and Chinese lawyers, university students in Beijing and Hu Shuli, a well-known Chinese journalist who recently ceded control of Caijing, one of the nation’s most respected and independent magazines. But officials say time constraints, not political considerations, sidelined those options, although the sightseeing agenda remained intact.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/world/asia/18china.html