As President Barack Obama took the stage at the Apec business leaders summit in Beijing, excitement rippled through the crowd and the packed room transformed into a sea of glowing smartphone screens.

Mr Obama is a rock star in China, no matter what editorials in state-controlled nationalist Chinese media say about the “insipid banality” of the “lame-duck” president or the decline of liberal democracy and “lazy” America.

The reception was in stark contrast to a speech by Vladimir Putin in the same venue earlier, when nobody in the much smaller audience tried to take selfies with the Russian president. Even China’s President Xi Jinping, who spoke a day earlier, did not get anywhere near the excitement or rapt attention lavished on Mr Obama by the mostly Chinese crowd. The contrast goes much further than a popularity contest at a business event.