Given that it had been nearly six years since a chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had journeyed to Beijing to meet the secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) performance on May 4 was rather odd. If only for the propagandistic value of the meeting, one would have expected Xi to do his best to be charming (admittedly no small challenge) when meeting Eric Chu (朱立倫). Instead, a dour-looking Xi gave the impression that he would rather have been somewhere else.
The scene of the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was worth a thousand words and epitomized the gap that continues to exist between the two societies. On the KMT side of the table, the Chu delegation included men and women. On the other side, the Chinese delegation was entirely made up of middle-aged men. Even more telling was the body language. During his speech, KMT Chairman Chu spoke eloquently, without referring to his notes, and looked straight at Xi and other members of the Chinese group, smiling occasionally. Xi, meanwhile, sounded sometimes bored, sometimes condescending, making little eye contact and constantly referring to his written notes, stumbling on a few occasions and sounding very much as if this was the first time he’d seen them. Chu exuded confidence; Xi, disengagement. From that scene, one could have been forgiven for thinking that Chu, not Xi, was in charge.
My article, published today on Thinking Taiwan, continues here.
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