-Caveat Lector-
Washington Times-October 26, 1999
A royal Bronx cheer for Jiang Zemin
By Wesley Pruden
Bill Clinton gave President Jiang Zemin of the People's Republic
of China a garbled message from the West. Mr. Jiang had to go to
Europe to learn that a lot of people in the civilized world,
official and otherwise, think the oppressive government in
Beijing is not quite ready to be seen in decent company.
Bill Clinton wants Mr. Jiang and his government to be his
"strategic partners," but the Hot Springs Kid probably doesn't
have a choice. The Chinese bought our 42nd president at steep
discount and cooked him like a plump Peking duck. But when Mr.
Jiang got to England and France all he found at market was Tony
Blair, as stale as a thousand-year-old egg.
Mr. Jiang got the message from from Prince Charles (with an
assist from the Bard). The prince is emerging as the smarter half
of that nice troubled couple from Wales, after all. He told
President Jiang to get lost when he showed up in London. He
snubbed the state banquet Mr. Jiang threw for his mum the queen,
and declined to show him any of the sights, as he usually does
for visiting heads of state.
The prince is not saying anything, naturally, at least not
in public, but the snub was loud and eloquent, and two days later
when President Jiang got to Paris the French politicians of both
right and left gave Jacques Chirac, the president of France, a
bit of razzing for making the Chinese president feel more welcome
than he actually is. And everywhere the man from Beijing went he
heard Bronx cheers -- in the proper English and French accents,
of course.
When they took Mr. Jiang to watch a rehearsal at
Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the theater management felt
compelled to say that there was no hidden message in the choice
of Act IV of "Julius Caesar." Said the theater, with a wink and a
smile: "Shakespeare's Globe does not imply any direct comparison
between Brutus and Cassius and the leaders of Britain and China,
and hopes that this scene will be of interest and enjoyment."
Of course. Tony Blair, like Jacques Chirac in France and
Bill Clinton before them in Washington, had invited Mr. Jiang to
London for a proper sucking-up exercise, as only a CEO from the
West can suck. Men like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton have lusted
for generations to sell the oil for the lamps of China. President
Jiang no doubt thought Brutus was talking just to him: "There is
a tide in the affairs of men/which, taken at the flood, leads on
to fortune;/Omitted, all the voyage of their life/is bound in the
shallows and in miseries./On such a full sea are we now
afloat/and we must take the current when it serves/or lose our
ventures./
Or maybe the real message in Act IV was not hidden at all.
"Ha!" cries Brutus. "Who comes here?/ I think it is the weakness
of mine eyes/that shapes this monstrous apparition./It comes upon
me. Art thou any thing?/Art thou some god, some angel, some
devil/that maks't my blood cold and my hair to stare?"/
Or maybe this was the relevant message from Brutus: "Fret
till your proud heart break./Go show your slaves how choleric you
are,/and make your bondsmen tremble/ . . . by the gods, you shall
digest the venom of your spleen."/
Everywhere Mr. Jiang went venom of other spleens followed,
with protesters flailing the English autumn air with banners and
placards celebrating Tibet and the Dalai Lama, and, outside the
Globe Theater, needling the visitor with the sort of literary
japery rarely seen in street demonstrations: "Et tu, Tony?" and
"Observe you, Jiang. He has a mean and hungry look."
Tony and Jacques, through their spokesman, offered the usual
argle-bargle about trade making democrats and how they were only
doing it in the cause of "open and frank dialogue". Mr. Chirac,
entertaining the visitor at his country place, even suffered him
a dance with Madame Chirac and got him photographed feeding a
newborn lamb with a baby's bottle.
President Jiang tried for several days to ignore the cries
of outrage but yesterday, with more than a hint of exasperation,
insisted that he's a small-d democrat himself and he doesn't have
any idea what the protests are about. "I don't know their
concerns exactly," he said. "In many countries I have visited, I
have encountered this phenomenon."
Since the Chinese are not famous for being dumb and slow to
catch on, we can assume this was an undiplomatic lie. But there
was no mistaking the message sent to him by Prince Charles, who
usually makes it to dinner on time. He declined with thanks this
time, and put out the word that he couldn't make it to President
Jiang's table because he was having a few friends in for dinner
himself. Not for fish and chips, necessarily. It was something
simple, and very eloquent.
Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
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