President Jiang Zemin got a hard time from US Congress members on human rights, and a public lecture from President Clinton on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, but he has good reason to keep smiling his wide-eyed smile.
Back home in China he has emerged as the big winner in his engagement with the world's superpower.
The Chinese leader's summit meeting with Mr Clinton on Wednesday was hailed by China's state-controlled media yesterday as a US endorsement of his policies. The state banquet in the White House was presented as symbolic evidence of a breakthrough in relations between the two countries.
State-controlled television and newspapers in China censored news of the visit. There was no report of Mr Clinton's lecture to the Chinese president in front of the world's cameras about how Beijing's policies on human rights and the Tiananmen crackdown put China "on the wrong side of history".
Mr Jiang had said that the "political disturbance" in 1989 jeopardised state security and necessary measures according to law had to be taken. Chinese TV's version of the joint press conference showed two smiling world leaders standing side by side and did not include Mr Clinton's wish for a time when there would be "full room for debate, dissent and freedom to worship as part of the fabric of a truly free Chinese society".
Mr Jiang was reportedly subject to hard talking from Congress members but the China Daily said only that they made speeches stressing the importance of Jiang's visit and how crucial such exchanges were to world peace and stability.
Mr Jiang's international diplomacy will reach another high point in two weeks when President Yeltsin of Russia arrives for a three-day visit to mark the resolution of long-outstanding border disputes between the two countries.
Mr Jiang already has achieved a "strategic partnership" with Russia. No Chinese leader this century has managed to have such an accord with both Washington and Moscow at the same time.
Reuters add: President Jiang yesterday was in the bastion of capitalism to meet US business leaders eager to make deals in the world's largest market.
Mr Jiang, snubbed by New York political leaders in protest over China's human rights record, was spending most of the sixth day of his eight-day visit with the business elite, including ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. The only exception was breakfast with former President George Bush, who was ambassador to Beijing in the 1970s.
Concerns over human rights prompted Governor George Pataki of New York and the city's mayor, Mr Rudolph Giuliani, to give Mr Jiang the cold shoulder.
"I think you want to make the statement that the Chinese government has to take human rights a lot more seriously than they do," Mr Giuliani said.