Joint meetings of the Australian Parliament of the House of Representatives on 26 March 1942, and addressed members of Parliament from outside the chamber later that day. The first address by an invited guest to the Parliament in a formally convened joint sitting of which there was an official record was on 2 January 1992, by the US President, George H. W. Bush. Later addresses to joint sittings were from US presidents Bill Clinton (1996) and George W. Bush (2003); and President of China Hu Jintao (2003). (George W. Bush's and Hu Jintao's addresses occurred on consecutive days in October 2003.) Subsequently, the Senate Standing Committee
Hu Jintao but it was clear that Hu's actions in Lhasa earned him unprecedented attention in the upper echelons of party power, including by "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping. When tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square, Hu was one of the first regional leaders to publicly declare his support for the central authorities. Hu experienced high-altitude sickness in June 1990, and returned to Beijing, but remained in his position for another two years, during which Hu achieved little. But his departure to Beijing was seen as a merely means to return to the centerfold of Chinese politics, which led to some doubts as to