South China Morning Post: 'Sensitive guest' stays aloof; Protesters forced to keep their distance as Jiang snubs German press

Didi Kirsten Tatlow in Berlin

President Jiang Zemin quoted German poetry and stressed blooming Sino-German ties, but the overall impression left by his six-day official visit to Germany was one of great secrecy. So low was Mr Jiang's public profile - he declined to speak to the press even once - that by Thursday he had been dislodged from newspapers in favour of a dispute about whether German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder dyed his hair or not. In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin, also in Germany last week, appeared with Mr Schroeder on one of the nation's top television chat shows.

Protests accompanied Mr Jiang through four states, even as a Chinese spokesman said the two countries had "agreed to differ" on human rights issues. A heavy police presence ensured Falun Gong; Tibetan and Uygur demonstrators were kept well away from Mr Jiang. "The police told us we had to be far enough away from Jiang not to bother him, but our banner is so big, I think he can see it," said a Falun Gong follower who took part in a meditation demonstration by about 100 people 50 metres from Mr Jiang's hotel. One waiter at the hotel said security was remarkably tight. "Some of our Asian colleagues weren't allowed to come to work for these days," he said.

Falun Gong protesters posing as photographers [questioned] Mr Jiang during photo opportunities and greeted him with protests in Potsdam, Dresden and Wolfsburg, where he signed a long-term contract with Volkswagen for Shanghai's VW joint-venture plant. They even followed him to the small town of Goslar in the Harz Mountains.

Mr Jiang counts as a "very sensitive guest" in diplomatic circles. Yet domestic irritation was directed less at Mr Jiang than at the German Government's perceived connivance in keeping protesters away and allowing Mr Jiang to snub the German people by failing to speak to the press. Mr Jiang loved to quote poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poems in German and might like to serenade US President George W. Bush on the accordion with O Sole Mio, but when it comes to meeting the press "the President's affability ends", wrote Sueddeutsche Zeitung magazine.

According to the German Government, Mr Jiang's no-show for the German media was the product of "mutual agreement". "In less diplomatic language, what that means is if the German Government had insisted, Mr Jiang would have gone somewhere else. So they capitulated," Sueddeutsche Zeitung said. "It's hard to say what's more annoying; being blackmailed by the Chinese, or Germany's willingness to be blackmailed."

Mr Jiang left Germany for Libya yesterday. [...]