From binge drinking and David Beckham to the Labour Party’s role in recognizing the People’s Republic of China, Chinese state media have kicked into overdrive to praise Sino-British relations and point out shared interests as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is feted in London.
Since the Conservative Party decided it wanted Britain to be China’s “best partner in the West,” something championed by British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, old arguments about human rights and the fate of Hong Kong have largely fallen by the wayside.
In China, formerly vitriolic blasts in the tightly controlled government press that Britain is good for little more than museums and education have been replaced by warm, if sometimes rather odd, compliments for Britain.
Photo: Reuters
Images have been plastered across television and newspapers of the pomp and pageantry of Xi’s welcome, especially the involvement of Britain’s royal family.
The official China Daily, used by the government as an English-language mouthpiece to the world, has put a video on its Web site listing 29 things the Chinese and the British share, including binge drinking, unhealthy food and “adorable creatures” like pandas and David Beckham.
“Now were [sic] are becoming close friends,” it concludes.
The Global Times, a widely read tabloid that delights in upsetting foreigners with its nationalist editorials, has set aside the acrimony to cheer on Britain’s new-found respect for China.
“When it comes to policy toward China, the UK bears no geopolitical burden. It is therefore more open-minded,” it said in an editorial on Tuesday.
Even Xi himself has gotten in on the love-in, quoting Shakespeare in a speech on Wednesday evening at a banquet in London.
Xi’s meeting with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn proved a bit of a headscratcher for one Chinese newspaper, which decided to go beyond the brief Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement of the event and explain the significance in a little more detail.
Under the headline “Why did Xi Jinping want to meet the leader of Britain’s opposition party?”, the Southern Metropolis Daily quoted a Chinese academic as explaining it was under the Labour Party in 1950 that Britain recognized China’s new Communist government.
However, the paper also had to explain what an opposition party was.
“The main obligation of an opposition party is to supervise the behavior of the ruling party, and at the same time to accumulate political capital for becoming the ruling party upon winning a future election,” it said.
The story was later removed from the paper’s Web site.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not