CHINA’S President suffered the embarrassment of being heckled for more than a minute on the White House lawn yesterday by a protester who accused him of persecution.

The arrival ceremony for Hu Jintao was interrupted by a woman from the banned Falun Gong religious movement. She began shouting from a camera stand directly in front of President Bush and his guest.

“President Bush, stop him from killing,” she shouted. “Stop persecuting the Falun Gong . . . President Hu, your days are numbered. No more time for China’s ruling party.” The incident took place immediately after Mr Bush urged President Hu to allow Chinese to “speak freely”.

The Chinese leader, unaccustomed to such public protests, stopped speaking briefly until Mr Bush lent over and reassured him. Later Mr Bush personally apologised for the incident.

In China, television screens were blanked out when the protests became audible. CNN said that its signal to China was interrupted twice: first when the heckler was shouting and later when the network reported the incident.

Falun Gong was also out in force in demonstrations across Washington, protesting against torture and human organ harvesting. Iting Lin, 33, said she had travelled from Taiwan to protest against President Hu’s visit. Other protesters had flown in from Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Mounted police separated demonstrators in front of the White House from tourists, Chinese folk dancers and supporters of President Hu. The summit got off to a bumpy start when a White House announcer introduced the anthem of the “Republic of China” — the formal name for Taiwan.

Undaunted by the gaffe, Mr Bush said that the United States and China “intend to deepen our co-operation in addressing threats to global security, including the nuclear ambitions of Iran”.

Mr Bush pledged “to discuss with President Hu the importance of respecting human rights and the freedoms of the Chinese people”, including the right to “assemble, speak freely and to worship”.

President Hu promised help to ease nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran.

At a White House press conference, the two sought to narrow differences over trade. Mr Hu, aware of US impatience with America’s record $202 billion trade deficit with China, said: “We have taken measures and will continue to take steps to resolve the issue.”

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