Dear Friends!
Floyd Rudmin kindly draws our awareness to an article that shows us the Chinese perspective of recent events and how they might be understood as humiliating.
Thanks, dear Floyd!
Warmly!
Evelin

The US forgets its manners
By Todd Crowell

Greater China
Asia Times Online (www.atimes.com)
Apr 26, 2006

HUA HIN, Thailand - Considering how much time and effort was spent on the ceremonial details of Chinese President Hu Jintao's official visit to Washington last week, it is hard to understand how things could have gotten fouled up so badly.

It should be remembered that the visit started off as a deliberate putdown. The Chinese argued strenuously for a full state visit complete with a black-tie state dinner. They got an official state lunch and a welcome on the White House grounds. Things went downhill from there.

First the announcer described the national anthem being played in Hu's honor as that of the Republic of China, not the People's Republic of China (PRC).

In the middle of the ceremony a heckler from the Falungong, a quasi-Buddhist sect banned in China, was allowed to scream abuse at the Chinese president for at least a full minute, some say more than two minutes, before being evicted.

Toward the end of the ceremony, President George W Bush was photographed grabbing Hu's jacket sleeve to guide him in the right direction. Hu looked down on Bush with obvious distaste as if to say, "Keep your mangy hands off me."

At a news conference in the Oval Office, a bored-looking Vice President Dick Cheney was photographed slumped in a chair reading a book while the two presidents answered questions.

The official Chinese media may not have reported the heckler or some of the other boorish incidents. But pictures, videos and descriptions are all over the Internet, stoking anger even among those blogs outside the PRC that normally spend their time bashing the Chinese Communist Party.

"It is no exaggeration to say that the long-term consequences of Thursday's events for the US and people everywhere yearning for a lowering of international tensions would turn out to be both negative and significant," said the China Confidential blog.

This was Bush's Belgrade moment. There may be a few Chinese who do not believe that the United States deliberately bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. There might be a few Chinese who don't believe that the US deliberately sought to humiliate Hu.
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Please read the entire article at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD26Ad01.html