On Friday morning, Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoyed the symbolic high point of his first state visit to the United States – a 21-gun salute outside the White House.
However, for most Americans, it was a sideshow: the main news networks were deep into their fourth straight day of blanket coverage of Pope Francis’ historic US visit.
Xi’s US trip has been firmly overshadowed by the wildly popular Pontiff, raising questions over its timing and contrasting sharply with the wall-to-wall coverage of Xi by Chinese media.
China’s tightly controlled state media has focused heavily on the pomp, ceremony and shows of respect Xi has been treated to in Seattle and then Washington.
The adoring domestic coverage is important for Xi, who is grappling with Chinese market instability and a flagging economy at a time when he is seeking to consolidate his grip on the leadership ahead of a crucial Communist Party congress in 2017.
On a visit to a school in Tacoma, near Seattle, where Xi and his singer wife Peng Liyuan were serenaded by the school choir, state TV showed children screaming their appreciation. A day earlier, Xi had quoted Martin Luther King and sprinkled references to US pop culture into his speech to tech executives.
Pope’s visit barely features in Chinese media
China has also stressed Xi’s personal connection to the US, with the Xinhua news agency carrying a video on its Facebook page – not mentioning that Facebook is blocked in China – showing him putting on a friendly face for Americans.
“From Iowa visitor to White House guest,” the English-language video explains, referring to a brief 1985 visit when Xi was an animal-feed official in Hebei.
The Pope’s visit to the US, by contrast, has barely featured in the Chinese media. The Vatican has had no formal diplomatic ties to Beijing since the Communist Party took power in 1949.
Pope Francis, the most socially progressive pope in generations, has drawn large crowds and the kind of welcome normally reserved for rock stars during his first US visit. US live news networks have hung on his every word and step. In fact, talk of the Pope dwarfed any attention given Xi’s visit, according to data provided by MediaMiser, which tracks news and media content online, on television and radio.