Periscope

U.S.-China: Lost in Translation

President Hu Jintao can take comfort in one thing: most Chinese didn't see the excruciating reception he got at the White House. The state-controlled news media gave viewers at home only glimpses of last week's U.S. trip. But the painful details flashed among the country's Internet users. "To summarize my feelings while watching this live news: I felt like I was raped," wrote one participant in Tianya, a mainland-based Web forum.

For face-conscious Chinese, the visit was a problem even before it began. Hu's retinue had hoped for a full state dinner. Instead, they had to settle for a luncheon. That snub was intentional, at least. A series of unplanned slights and slurs compounded it. The arrival ceremony on the East Lawn began with the event's American announcer misidentifying Hu's home country as "the Republic of China"--the formal name for Taiwan. When Hu tried to deliver his opening speech, he was interrupted by a human-rights heckler. In the Oval Office afterward, Hu got a personal apology from his host. "I'm sorry this happened," Bush said. Those words may pose a challenge to official translators in Beijing: the Chinese language offers at least four delicately calibrated ways to say "sorry," and the state-run press will need to consider precisely which shade of U.S. regret will save the most face for Hu.

Melinda Liu and Richard Wolffe

Immigration: Double Benefit

What does immigration have to do with interest rates? A lot, says Peter Spencer, chief economist of the Ernst & Young ITEM Club, an economic forecasting group in London. The 300,000 immigrants who have moved to Britain from Eastern Europe in the past three years have helped plug a looming labor shortage, he says, and a recent ITEM Club study finds they are directly responsible for lowering British interest rates by a half percent. By working cheaply in labor-short fields like construction, agriculture and administrative support, the immigrants have helped offset bottlenecks that might have generated wage inflation. They also keep a lid on capital spending. "Instead of employers having to buy newer, more expensive machinery, they can hire a few more immigrants instead," says Spencer. The upshot: less pressure on the Bank of England to raise rates.