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I can understand why the Chinese authorities would try to make it a tightly scripted affair. What I couldn't understand was why Obama's team had allowed the event - highlight of the president's first visit to China - to turn out the way it did.

 I wasn't surprised that the audience was comprised of carefully selected young people from the Shanghai area. Nobody should have been surprised either that they had received some "training" from officials before the session. But none of the questions that were supposed to have come through the White House's own website (presumably circumventing Chinese officials' prior screening) were of any real substance regarding US-Chinese relations.

I couldn't get the programme live on CCTV, China's official television station. Only local Shanghai TV carried the event live. It was also streamed on two popular Internet portals - and, as mentioned, the White House's website. They weren't censored. But local reporters said the video and audio feeds were rather choppy and delayed inside China itself.

CNN did a disturbing thing towards the end of the live telecast. Just when a Chinese student asked Obama about his opinion on the Internet and social media such as Facebook and Twitter, CNN got its anchors to start analysing the session. I clicked on Xinhua News Agency's website, which was providing a "live transcript in Chinese", and while it was helpful, it required four clicks to get to the relevant section that offered the full Chinese-language transcript of the event.

 And when there was a question that I thought should have drawn the American president into a substantial discussion on his policy on selling arms to Taiwan, Obama avoided addressing the issue.

The question was supposed to have come from a Taiwanese businessman via the Internet, asking about weapons sales by American to China's nemesis across the Taiwan Straits, suggesting that it could affect cross-straits relations. But Obama made no mention of arms sales to Taiwan. Instead he offered up the standard American response on Taiwan: "My administration fully supports a one-China policy…."

The only saving grace, perhaps, was a question about Twitter from a Chinese student. It was a "consolation prize" of the day.

"Should we be able to use Twitter freely?" the student asked.

Obama was at first a bit off the point. "Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone…."

He then hit the nail on the head: "I should be honest, as president of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely because then I wouldn't have to listen to people criticising me all the time."

He then added: "But because in the United States, information is free and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear."

If he was trying to set a personal example for China's leaders with that statement, it apparently hit a big wall.

Obama did touch on the question about Internet firewalls: "I am a big supporter of non-censorship. I recognise that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free, or unrestricted, Internet access, is a source of strength, and I think it should be encouraged."

 But why did he tone it down with that "supporter of non-censorship" expression?

With a sense of clear disappointment, an overseas Chinese tweeted in response: "Obama saying he is a big supporter of non-censorship is like saying I am a big supporter of non-hunger instead of just saying: I want to eat."

Yes, it's like me saying I am a big supporter of Obama's non-scripted town-hall meetings.