China state media hit out at US debate In public at least, Chinese political leaders are only ever seen to be in perfect agreement, so the spectacle of a US presidential debate seems strange and unsettling to many, especially when the candidates are talking about China. Following the third and final televised debate between President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, China's tightly controlled state media published photos and news reports briefly outlining the two candidates" positions and arguments. These Chinese-language reports, aimed at the domestic audience, paid little attention to either candidate's comments on China or to Mr Obama's description of the world's second-largest economy as an "adversary." But in English-language reports aimed at overseas readers, Chinese state media hit back at the tough language with some bluster of its own. The latest debate "has fallen into a vanity fair for China-bashers who compete to denigrate China, which in fact has little to do with China but everything to do with the losing competitiveness of the world's superpower," said one editorial from the official government newswire Xinhua that was published only in English. The same editorial lambasted Mr Romney for being "unusually truculent toward China" but it also gave him credit for toning down his rhetoric on this occasion. "It seems, fortunately, that the China-bashing game has not spun out of control, as the billionaire who used to profit handsomely from doing business with China knows that the largest and second-largest economies in the world . . . could not afford the backlash of tit-for-tat tariffs and eventually all-out economic war," it said. During the debate Mr Romney did indeed appear to soften his stance from previous debates, after Mr Obama said China was both an adversary and a potential partner in the international community. We can be a partner with China. We don't have to be an adversary in any way, shape or form," Mr Romney said. We can work with them and we can collaborate with them if they're willing to be responsible. A separate scathing editorial from Xinhua highlighted the two countries" trade ties and said no matter who was elected, they would have to tone down their criticism of China once they are in office so they can deal with America's "sclerotic inaptness toward China's inevitable rise." On an unverified Twitter account bearing Xinhua's logo, a series of tweets after the debate cited various economic statistics and copied in the Twitter handles of both candidates. The tweets highlighted rapid growth in US exports to China and the rising value of the renminbi in recent years as well as the number of Chinese government investigations into counterfeiting and trademark violations. Twitter is blocked by China's pervasive internet censorship apparatus and the Xinhua Twitter account has only about 2,500 followers. Interest in the latest debate among Chinese internet users was lukewarm at best, with relatively few comments on homegrown microblogs such as Sina Weibo. But as some commentators pointed out, even the subdued official Chinese-language coverage on the debate provided greater insights into the US candidates" policies and personalities than anything they can glean about their own leaders. As it happens, China will get a new national leader just a few days after the US goes to the polls to elect their new president early next month. In China's case the outcome has already been decided, but to most Chinese people Xi Jinping, the man who will most likely run the country for the next 10 years, is a mysterious, enigmatic figure. Yang Hengjun, a Chinese writer who often comments on Chinese politics put it this way on his Chinese microblog: "Ordinary Chinese people's familiarity with American presidential elections far exceeds foreigners" knowledge of Chinese politics and it also exceeds Chinese people's understanding of their own leadership politics."