Sweat seeped through his green polo shirt in the 37C heat as President Clinton climbed a section of the Great Wall yesterday afternoon with his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, and pronounced it "magnificent".
Taking a sightseeing break on the fourth day of their tour of China, the Clintons were exposed to the fierce, polluted heat of a Beijing summer. It was even hotter in the Forbidden City in central Beijing, which they toured earlier.
After an hour-long drive along a usually dangerous highway which yesterday was cleared of traffic, they arrived at one of the most dramatic stretches of the Great Wall, at the village of Mutianyu. The President and Chelsea glided up the steep hillside to the wall by cable car while Mrs Clinton rode in another car with her mother, Mrs Dorothy Rodham.
The Mutianyu section was built in the 6th century, then fortified in the 14th century by the Ming emperors. "It's quite unbelievable, isn't it?" said Mr Clinton as the American first family posed for pictures like the thousands of tourists who visit the wall every day.
Where Mr Richard Nixon, the first US president to visit the 6,000km structure, contented himself with declaring famously, "It's a great wall, isn't it?", the more loquacious Mr Clinton could not resist seeking a modern significance for the stone structure erected by Emperor Qin Shihuang to keep out the barbarians. He compared it to Sino-US relations, saying they might take a long time to build but would hopefully last for ever.
"I believe this wall now is a symbol that China shows to the rest of the world, not a wall to keep people out [but one which] sort of unifies the country," he said.
Yesterday morning the Clintons went to a service in Chongwenmen Church, the largest Protestant church in Beijing. In a short homily the US President told the overflow congregation: "I believe the Chinese and Americans are brothers and sisters as children of God."
Seated in the front pew of the church, which was built in 1904 mainly to serve the American community, the Clintons heard the minister, Shi Zeshing, claim that the number of practising Protestants in China had grown from 700,000 in 1949 to well over 10 million.
During the service, a charismatic Christian women caused a slight commotion when she walked towards the President, who turned to see what the fuss was about. She was bundled to the back by Chinese security officials. At Mr Clinton's request the woman, Chen Anbi from Sichuan province, was taken to see him after the service. "I just wanted to tell the President that people in China are not equal," she said.
The President appeared relaxed yesterday after completing the serious business of his trip on Saturday with a summit meeting and televised press conference. He and the Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, got on so well that they took turns to direct the 60-member band of China's People's Liberation Army in an impromptu bit of fun at a state banquet on Saturday evening.
"You can do it, Mr President," Mr Clinton said, cajoling the normally staid Communist Party chairman to conduct China's Song of the Motherland. He then took over to conduct Hands Across the Sea and the song that inspired the naming of his daughter, Chelsea Morning.
Earlier the same band had played for Mr Clinton's official welcome at Tiananmen Square, where a 21-gun salute was fired and the US President reviewed an honour guard of 176 PLA servicemen. His Chinese hosts were clearly delighted. To the visiting Americans the image of China is no longer just that of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, but of a great wall to climb and a fun-loving PLA army band.