Remarks at the Meeting with Future Chinese Leaders

First of all, it must be noted that the speech was primarily devoted to the students gathered at Museum and Technology in China. That might be reason why Obama tried to use also a bit o humor in his speech so as in: " I’d also like to thank to outstanding Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who exemplifies the deep ties and respect between our nations. I don't know what he said, but I hope it was good." This reaction to the Chinese speaker whom Obama did not understand helped to improve mutual relationships and evoked an immediate laughter. The reactions from the audience are not so frequent here as in domestic speeches, however, they seem to be really sincere and not pretended.

Though addressed to the students, the speech possesses qualities of true diplomatic speeches. At the beginning, necessary thanksgiving and stressing out of very good relationships among the United States and China appeared. Obama went even further to the history and explained the mutual relationships as deeply rooted as far as the origin of the United States in 18th century. Such adorations of reciprocal intercourses belong to common features of diplomatic speeches; on the other hand, as China has become an important economic partner for the United States especially in the last decades, it could be seen an enormous effort to persuade all that Obama's words are meant seriously and sincerely. And although Obama admitted that the relationships among these two countries had not always been without some kind of misapprehensions, he described them all the time as the misapprehensions in the past and did not say anything about possible misapprehensions in recent days. Thus, it may be invoked an impression they do not exist; nevertheless, it was the purpose because it is not appropriate to talk about troubles when the goal is to strengthen unity and bilateral cooperation.

Obama chose a truly diplomatic approach when he was talking about immense advantages of the Internet and the possibilities it brings with regards to the immediate and free access to information. He, for instance, said: " China is now the largest Internet user - which is why we were so pleased to include the Internet as a part of today's event. This country has the world's largest mobile network, and it is investing in the new forms of energy that can both sustain growth and combat - and I'm glad to deepening the partnership between the United States and China in this critical area tomorrow. But above all, I see the China's future in you - young people whose talent and dedication and dreams will do so much to shape the 21st century". These honorable words, however, did not comment on the fact that the Chinese regime limits free access to some kind of information; taking it all, Obama is often criticized for ignoring the Chinese approach to this problem in order not to endanger economic cooperation between these two countries. The message in this critical sense might be thus found just in the hint of the future of Chinese young people. He is not even more concrete when he answered the question whether the Chinese people would be able to use Twitter freely. Though Obama promoted clearly free access of information in every country, he simultaneously added that " different countries have different traditions". Therefore, he was a highly cautious in this way.

Also the rest of the speech was marked by the effort to stress mutual good relationships among China and The United States. The questions that followed after the speech were answered with no special will to be more open. Though Obama proved that he is a skilful speaker even when he was asked to answer the questions and thus react immediately and though he tried to flatter all the questioners he left a considerable space for diplomatic approach and so did not respond as openly as might be probably expected.