America seems to be lavishing attention on China at the moment: Both California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former president George Bush are currently touring the country. Bush senior assured Prime Minister Wen Jiabao that his son George W. -- who will also head to China this weekend -- had a special spot in his heart for the burgeoning superpower.

However, ahead of his three-day state visit, the current US president made a point of calling on the Beijing leadership to open up the country by giving Chinese greater political and religious freedom.

"The people of China want more freedom to express themselves, to worship without state control, to print Bibles and other sacred texts without fear of punishment," said Bush in a speech in Kyoto, Japan on Wednesday. He has since moved on to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Busan, South Korea.

"Little Bush" has little credibility

But the man known only as "little Bush" in China has a problem. He has very little credibility in Asia on issues such as human rights. Torture scandals in Iraq and elsewhere involving the US military, coupled with what is seen as blatant disregard by the Bush administration for the Geneva Conventions  , are making it very difficult for Washington to lecture Beijing or backward countries like Myanmar.

In China, even critics of Beijing's repressive policies find Bush's thoroughly legitimate admonishment tiresome. "Bush may be right about a few things, but we want to solve our problems ourselves," one Chinese economist in Beijing told SPIEGEL.

Of course, the vast majority of Chinese weren't even aware of Bush's call for greater freedom. The government mentioned his speech in Japan in official state media, but left out the more controversial parts. One popular Beijing daily newspaper devoted an entire page to his visit to Kyoto, however, there was nothing about Bush mentioning Taiwan as a democratic and prosperous example for China.