the lucky reporter was my former colleague from "the new york times," mark landler.ere because china does not much like "the times" for its critical reporting about the country. it's even forced one of "the times" reporters to leave the country and it's making it hard for others to enter. it's one of the things that mark asked about. watch. >> several news organizations from the united states have had issues with residency permits in china being denied. isn't it time to extend that sort of right to foreign correspondents who seek to cover your country? >> so there it is. and at first the chinese leader completely ignored the question. then eventually he circled back to it. there is quite a backstory here, so i caught up with mark right after he left china to hear the story behind the story. he joined me earlier from obama's next stop, myanmar. mark, thatinks so much for joing me. >> pleasure, brian. >> take me into the room, maybe things we couldn't see in the television coverage. did the chinese president look uncomfortable at all taking your question or answering y

the chinese president initially appeared to ignore the question from "new york times" reporter mark landler on press access in china, leaving mr. obama looking astonished. but then li conceded his country's human rights record was not perfect. china has made enormous proing in its human rights and that is a fact, li said. on the question of chinese human rights we should never consider our work to be mission accomplished. xi eventually answered the question blaming the "new york times" for its own access problems in china, the party that has created the problem, xi said, should be the one to resolve it. white house officials breathed a sigh of relief after working for weeks to convince skeptical chinese officials to hold a news conference, it was a diplomatic victory. before leaving beijing, mr. obama toasted xi for china's efforts to help fight ebola in west africa. xi offered some praise of his own saying the u.s./china relationship had reached a new starting point. republicans are already attacking the president's climate change plan, incoming senate majority leader mitch mcconnell calli

the chinese president initially appeared to ignore the question from "new york times" reporter mark landlernging on the question. but then xi conceded his country's human rights record wasn't perfect. china's made enormous progress in its human rights, xi said, on the question of china's human rights, we should never consider our work to be mission accomplished. xi eventually blamed "the new york times" for its own access issues. white house officials are breathed a sigh of relief after working for weeks to convince skeptical chinese officials to hold a news conference. it was a diplomatic victory. before leaving beijing, mr. obama toasted xi for china's efforts to help fight ebola in west africa. xi offered praise of his own saying the u.s./china relationship had reached a new starting point. republicans are already attacking the president's climate change plan. mitch mcconnell calling it unrealistic and a plan the president would be leaving to a successor. now the president heads off to burma to check on democratic efforts there and on to the g-20 summit in australia to face russia's pres

. >> wooduff: at another point, "new york times" reporter mark landler pressed xi about restrictionsamerican news organizations in china. >> reporter: in the spirit of these reciprocal visa arrangements that you've agreed to this week with business people and students, isn't it time to extend that sort of right to foreign correspondents who seek to cover your country? >> wooduff: xi initially ignored the question, even removing the earpiece feeding him english translation. later, he blamed the restrictions on unfavorable coverage of china, and, he said, "the party which started the problem should be the one to resolve it." >> woodruff: from beijing, president obama flew to myanmar to meet with leaders from the association of southeast asian nations. we'll explore the in's and out's of the climate agreement and of broader u.s.-china relations after the news summary. >> ifill: the ebola death toll in west africa has now surpassed 5,100, out of more than 14,000 cases. the world health organization announced the new figures today. meanwhile, nurses in parts of the u.s. staged rallies and

the great wall pretty easily so people are getting access to information in the order world and mark landler stood up who is an excellent journalist at the "new york times" and asked the question and of course, xi's initial response would be been just as i thought, the u.s. media are a direct extension of the u.s. government. they're conspiring against me. but what also was playing out in xi's head is this, he's trying to manage this anti-corruption campaign. he's trying to get the rot out of the party because if the rot isn't taken out of the party, the whole system collapses and the investigation that is being done particularly on the family most recently of wen jiabao, the former premiere, is very enlightening. and the deeper you get, the closer you come to some of the people who are today in power, and that, of course, robs them of their legitimacy to govern and i suspect that xi feels he's probably a little vulnerable in terms of the probing and the investigation that is going on and it's drawing a line in the sand. >> that's interesting. i wanted to ask you a little bit more about the

lagash obama had a small grin on his face when xi declined to answer mark landler's question.arol lee says except xi completely ignores markland questionnd takes from state media reported, undercutting the hope point of the white house pushing of the press conference. he rego, linda, democratic caller, -- here we go, linda, democratic caller. go ahead. caller: as i told your reception is, i love c-span, it has more congress live instead of waiting for somebody to tell me what they think about congress. it has really given me a good education, and also, i was pretty much a moderate republican all my life. i am in my 60's, and they pushed me out of that party by their bad behavior. i am so a shame of the impaired i think president obama is doing i think theand republicans are completely geared toward making him look bad. that is their main goal. it's mcconnell said it, and they are all just imitating him, and his trip to china i think is excellent. the emphasis on good climate and good care of the earth is very i think thend republicans should reconsider who they are pushing out