U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew ended a two-day visit to China on Wednesday after calling for action on cybersecurity and on the yuan's undervaluation against the dollar, but his greatest impact seemed to come from a far less complicated negotiation: what he ate for lunch.
While lawmakers in the U.S. would like to see the yuan appreciate to give American manufacturers a boost, China's netizens were more interested in valuing the frugal meal enjoyed by Lew and fellow officials directly after their meeting with President Xi Jinping.
The four officials, closely watched by journalists, ordered dumplings, cold dishes and tea costing a total of 109 yuan (U.S.$17.55) at the Bao Yuan Dumpling House in Beijing's diplomatic district.
Chinese officials, even those of fairly low rank, are routinely expected to spend freely when entertaining at taxpayers' expense, often to the tune of thousands of yuan.
Some commented on the popular microblogging service Sina Weibo that Lew might have set out to embarrass Chinese officials, while others quipped that even they could afford to take Lew out for lunch.
One Weibo user, in a biting reference to Xi's slogan "the China dream," wrote: "27 yuan a head: now that's the true China dream of the Chinese people."
Tianjin netizen "dongbianrichuxibianyu" said Lew should have let his hair down a bit. "He doesn't even eat as well as a village chief under our 'dynasty'," the user wrote in a satirical reference to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
'Dynasty'
Another user called on the "dynasty" to condemn in the strongest terms the failure of the American imperialists to eat meat, drink pricey Moutai liquor or to ask for extra receipts.
Meanwhile, Beijing-based academic Xu Xin wrote on his verified Weibo account that Lew's frugal lunch had put people in mind of U.S. ambassador Gary Locke's backpack-toting flight to Beijing via economy class and the 79 yuan spent on eating out at a small Beijing restaurant by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in August 2011.
"I also think of the hundreds of billions of yuan our public servants spend each year on meals, transport and overseas trips, and children in rural China who can’t afford clothes, food or school furniture," Xu wrote.
He later promised to take Lew out himself and spend no less than 901 yuan, an invitation that was declined by the U.S. Consulate on its official Weibo account on Wednesday.
Veteran journalist Zan Aizong said netizens reacted strongly because such behavior was unheard of among Chinese officials.
"You would never see Beijing leaders like Xi Jinping or Wen Jiabao go to a regular restaurant to get something to eat, because they care too much about showing off," Zan said.
"They are very different to U.S. leaders, who go to the supermarket to buy stuff for themselves."
Food safety problem
Zan said U.S. officials were probably unaware of the extent of China's food safety problems, however.
"Poisoned foodstuffs, gutter oil, diseased pork...who knows how many of the tens of thousands of pigs that die of disease in China every year end up in food," he said. "They probably don't really know about that."
Online commentator Zhang Yong said that eating a simple lunch should be a completely normal occurrence for officials in any country.
"Only in China would this draw comment," he said. "From this you can deduce the quality of Chinese officials, who all behave in morally dubious ways."
"I know that even the lowest-ranking would want to eat the best-known food in the best and most famous places when they went overseas," Zhang said. "Money is no object; they only care about having a good time."
The yuan hit an all-time high against the dollar on Wednesday, but Washington wants Beijing to remove the mechanism that pegs the currency to the greenback, allowing it to float freely on foreign exchange markets.
"China's exchange rate should be market determined. That's in our interest and China's interest. They recognize the need to do it for internal reasons as well," Lew said following talks in which he also raised the issue of computer hacking of U.S.-based organizations from China.
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama called a meeting with CEOs at the White House to discuss cybersecurity, and spoke with Xi by phone on the subject.
Lew, who is on his first international trip since taking office last month, also pressed for further dialog on North Korea in talks with China's new leaders.
Lew said that China and the United States will continue to be engaged on North Korea, however.
"We made clear that the U.S. views the provocative actions of North Korea as very serious and we will continue to pursue methods available to change the policy perspective in Pyongyang."
"We share a common objective of a denuclearized Korean peninsula and we will continue to discuss it," he told reporters before returning to Washington.
Reported by Fang Yuan for RFA's Mandarin service, and by Wei Ling and Ho Shan for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.