In a commentary headlined "Chinese-American Chess Board", Dnevnik says that the global balance of power has radically changed since 1999 when the Americans "incidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
US-Chinese relations have since reached the level of being closely intertwined, especially in economy. Nevertheless, each of the two presidents still talked to their respective nation at Tuesday's joint press conference in Beijing. Or, to put it more precisely, they addressed each their own media, which unfortunately failed to notice this.
Obama came to China in a rather unenviable position. As the president of a country neck-deep in debt he presented his Chinese creditors even before the visit with the status of a strategic partner, silence about human rights and a cancellation of a meeting with the Dalai Lama. Critics in Washington thought that Obama should haggle.
Dnevnik says that it is not trying to say politics has been elevated to the level of philosophy with Obama and does not know whether any haggling was done in Beijing. It is ready to believe though that Obama used his best arguments during a tete-a-tete with Hu Jintao.
The paper finds it important that in the middle of Beijing Obama suddenly started talking about human rights, mentioned the Dalai Lama and moved the deadlocked climate change talks.
