As we in Seattle continue to host the inimitable Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World, I thought this essay by Pierre Haski at Rue89 about French diminution in the Chinese shadow was particularly apropos. Assessing the above photo, Haski writes, horrified:
C’est la photo qui tue. Sans doute ce « moment décisif » cher à Henri Cartier-Bresson était-il trop tentant pour symboliser la nouvelle puissance chinoise et la contrition de Nicolas Sarkozy qui cherchait à se réconcilier avec LA nouvelle superpuissance. Et peut-être que cette image est totalement trompeuse, ne montrant qu’un instant déconnecté de son environnement.
In a different essay, Haski describes how Sarko was convinced/intimidated by Beijing’s tactic of “kill the chicken to frighten the monkeys [杀鸡给猴看/tué le poulet pour effrayer les singes.” And now, Sarkozy’s recent visit to Shanghai and Beijing, it seems, has come at the cost of criticism at home for his “kowtow” to Hu Jintao. Barack Obama, you are no longer tout seul!
Hu Jintao will have got used to these imperfect kowtows by now.
Let’s hope for more perfect ones in the future.
Thanks JR — and thought you might find this (unrelated) meme interesting: http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/commentary/2010-05/531578.html
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Hehe. I’m wondering if the police were unaware of the border of immunity between the road and the parking garage, or if they got carried away.
What I do know is that certain diplomats and their cars are a nuisance, here too. They are taking all sorts of liberties.
Btw, I’m feeling really sorry for Wang Xiaodong, the Global Times commenter and China Youth Research Center researcher. Those netizens with their unfair views of the nation must have hurt his feelings.