It turns out that not everyone in the United States blames China for the nation's high unemployment rate.

Chinese state media report that one of America's largest labor unions – the International Longshoremen's Association – last week honored Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as a “friend of the American worker” because of China's support for job growth in the United States.

Reports say Mr. Wen had received similar thanks from an unlikely source – the then governor of Massachusetts and now presidential candidate Mitt Romney — when the Chinese premier visited the American port of Boston late in 2003.

According to a 2003 posting on the website of China's foreign ministry, Governor Romney told Mr. Wen that trade and economic contacts between Massachusetts and China had brought many tangible benefits to the people of the U.S. state.

That is very different from what Romney has been saying on the campaign trail, where he charges that currency manipulation and other unfair trade practices by China have cost millions of American jobs.

Chinese state media say the longshoremen honored Mr. Wen Friday in Boston, 10 years after the first direct port call to the city by the China Ocean Shipping Company .

The reports say ILA Vice President Willam McNamara used the occasion to thank China for creating job opportunities for American workers.