On the latest Global Pulse episode, host Erin Coker examines media coverage of the evolving relations between China and the US. Watch the episode below and share your thoughts!

While this week’s Global Pulse, called “Chimerica,” looks at what the two nations share, there are plenty of points of friction between them. The U.S. regularly criticizes China’s human rights record, and now China has published a report equally critical of the U.S., for “destabilizing the world economy and meddling in other countries' affairs.”

The United States is in a tricky situation. On the one hand, the U.S. wants to encourage human rights and increased democracy in China; on the other hand it fears alienating China, its most prominent trading partner, which holds upwards of $800 billion of American debt. So how has the U.S. walked this delicate tightrope so far? Not very well.

Perhaps the best recent example of the awkward U.S.-China relationship is the controversial meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama. Most in the west see the Dalai Lama as a man of peace who dares to stand up to the might of the Chinese government. Not surprisingly, China considers him to be a threat to a unified China, due to his advocacy for the independence of Tibet. They also see him as a pawn of western nations bent on embarrassing the Chinese government. Even some western media sources have criticized the motives of the Dalai Lama. In an editorial from the UK’s Guardian, Brendan O’Neill describes the Dalai Lama as a poseur who “once auctioned his Land Rover on eBay for $80,000 and has even done an advert for Apple.” He also charges that the Dalai Lama “has [been] used as a battering ram by western governments in their culture war with China.”

But celebrities like Richard Gere and Sharon Stone are prominent followers of the Dalai Lama who advocate his return to Tibet, and American Buddhists have made some of his books pop-religion best sellers in America, so there was tremendous pressure on Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama. Although the meeting was carefully planned to try to not offend either side, it ended up offending both. Initially Obama refused to meet, citing the need to meet with China’s Hu Jintao first: human rights activists and western media called it a snub. When the meeting finally did happen it took place in a closed room without cameras. The Chinese were angry that the meeting took place at all.

Whether this and other rights issues are geat walls that will ultimately divide the two nations, or just side roads on the long march to cooperation remains unknown.

China sees two major challenges to its economic growth: rising unemployment and a deep investment in the U.S. dollar. Beijing's answer: spend and invest, and wheel and deal. In the process, China is crafting a recovery strategy that's spreading its interests around the world.

Sources: CCTV, China; Al Jazeera English, Qatar; Russia Today, Russia; BBC, U.K.; Press TV, Iran; Todo Noticias, Argentina

76,000 jobs slashed in one day, 15,000 more the next. The global meltdown becomes a personal financial meltdown for millions of fired workers worldwide. Nations act to protect their interests at home. But that solution may be a bigger threat than the crisis itself.

Sources: Al Jazeera English, Qatar; BBC, U.K.; SABC, South Africa; Russia Today, Russia; KBS, South Korea; CCTV, China; Deutsche Welle, Germany

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The House plans to vote today on a scaled-back $15 billion bailout backed by Democrats and the White House intended to keep GM and Chrysler in business through late March. Ford's slightly better financial portfolio will allow it to sit out this round of proposed aid. The measure though may face a fatal filibuster from Senate Republicans, despite several weeks of back-and-forth negotiations.

One anti-bailout argument has been that the Big 3's workers must cut back on their lavish $73 an hour compensation. But as David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times today, "Big Three workers aren't making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year)." American auto workers do claim more generous health and retirement benefits than their foreign auto worker counterparts, but the actual take-home pay of the two groups is  roughly comparable.

We are more likely to agree with Leonhardt's conclusion, that American automakers are failing less because of outdated labor costs, and more so because most Americans no longer care for their outdated cars.