HANGZHOU, China — Air Force One had a bumpy landing in Hangzhou on Saturday, but it was nothing compared with what happened after the plane rolled to a stop.
As the reporters who traveled to the Group of 20 summit meeting with President Barack Obama from Hawaii piled out and walked under the wing to record his arrival, we were met by a line of bright blue tape, held taut by security guards. In six years of covering the White House, I had never seen a foreign host prevent the media from watching Obama disembark.
When a White House staff member protested to a Chinese security official that this was not normal protocol, the official shouted, “This is our country.”
In another departure from protocol, there was no rolling staircase for Obama to descend in view of the television cameras. Instead, he emerged from a door in the belly of the plane that he usually uses only on high-security trips, like those to Afghanistan.
Witnessing the scene, Susan Rice, the national security adviser, looked baffled and annoyed. Joined by her deputy, Benjamin Rhodes, she ducked under the rope to make her way closer to the president. The two were stopped by the same Chinese official, who angrily challenged them. Asked later what happened, a diplomatic Rice replied, “They did things that weren’t anticipated.”
There were further surprises. At the West Lake State House, where Obama met with President Xi Jinping, White House aides, protocol officers and Secret Service agents got into a series of shouting matches over how many Americans should be allowed into the building before Obama’s arrival. There were fears the confrontation would become physical