China media rips Obama ahead of visit

China isn't exactly welcoming President Obama with open arms before his visit next week -- its state-run media says "U.S. public opinion has downgraded" the American leader in the wake of this week's elections.

"Obama always utters 'yes, we can,' which led to the high expectations people had for him," reports the Global Times, which has close ties with China's Communist government. "But he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters."

It added: "U.S. society has grown tired of his banality."

Obama -- whose Democrats lost control of the Senate in this week's elections -- leaves Sunday for China, the start of a week-long economic and trade trip that will also take him to conferences in Burma and Australia.

The president's visit to China includes a meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping.

Ahead of that meeting, the Global Times -- in an editorial entitled "mid-term result will further thwart Obama -- also ripped the president's foreign policy.

"He has managed to take U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but left no peace," the state-run media organ said. "Osama Bin Laden was killed during his tenure, but the IS (Islamic State) has emerged from the Middle East."