Shorter Hu: Just shut up and buy our stuff because we’ve manipulated our currency to the point you have no choice

If you’re not watching the joint Hu/Obama presser you should be .

2.06pm ET: A Bloomberg journalist asks Hu directly why he didn’t answer the first AP question about human rights – and follows up with a query about the reaction from congressional leaders, as mentioned below.

Hu says he didn’t hear the question about human rights for technical reasons, saying it was a question directed at President Obama, but says he will answer it now:

“President Obama and I have already met eight times. each time we met we had an exchange of views in a candid manner … in the issues we covered we also covered human rights. China is always committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. In terms of human rights China has made enormous progress.”

“Chinese is a huge country with a huge population,” Hu reminds us, and it “still faces challenges in terms of reform”.

2.05pm ET: “We want to sell you all kinds of stuff. We want to sell you planes, we want to sell you cars, we want to sell you software,” says Obama in response to a question about the growth of China.

Joint asskissing session here on CPSAN2.

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