Not since Richard Nixon stepped off the plane in 1972 has an American president come off well from a visit to China. Not Bill Clinton, reprimanding his hosts on human rights while pouring on the flattery; not George W. Bush, berating them for American consumers’ taste for Chinese goods and, after worshipping at a state-run “patriotic” church, telling them to allow more religious freedom.

At home, US presidents are told scornfully by Congress that they are too soft on China — yet when they land, even if some of the words are tough, they seem wrong-footed by the reality of China’s rising power, unsure of their strongest cards.

Until he landed in Beijing, Obama seemed to be falling into the same trap. The tariffs he chose to put on Chinese tyres earlier this year were the stupidest action of his presidency, a sop to the chorus in Congress about the trade deficit (shrinking now, thanks to recession). Yet in declining to meet the Dalai Lama before this trip, to avoid offending China, he seemed unnecessarily deferential. Nor has he asked directly for help in Afghanistan, despite US fury at China’s lucrative purchase of an Afghan copper mine while contributing little to the country’s security.

China’s financing of the US’s deficit — it is now the world’s biggest lender to the US — is the standard excuse for diffidence. “Obama goes to meet America’s bankers” has been the sardonic thrust of the past few days’ headlines. But that wrongly implies a dependency on China for its financing of the US deficit. Yes, China has a sharp eye on the US’s ability to pay down its debt. Obama cannot expect to escape questions about his Afghan intentions in Beijing, even if they are presented as questions about the impact on the federal deficit. But to think that Chinese leaders would want to sell large quantitites of US Treasuries, and see the dollar plunge, is to think that they would contemplate that annihilation of value in their assets. Clearly, US fiscal policies are unsustainable but that does not turn Obama, in Beijing, entirely into a supplicant.

The refreshing surprise from his town hall remarks yesterday was that he has not come begging. He laced everything with a reassurance that the US did not seek to contain China. But his comments on the value of the internet, freedom, and the ability of citizens to “hold their own governments accountable” were criticism by any other name. In a now-familiar formula, Obama made a gesture of humility, asserting that “we do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation” — but added that freedom of expression and worship, access to information and political participation were “universal rights”. Not an imposition, then; merely a demand that China change profoundly.

If he can say those things, he should be able to say others: to express concern about the build-up in the region’s most powerful military; to demand more help on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme; to urge more involvement in North Korea’s nuclear challenge. On Afghanistan, the decision that awaits him at home, he can also demand more help. There’s no such thing as a cheap copper mine, he could tell his hosts today and tomorrow.

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