In a dining hall that was once a swimming pool for Olympic champions and now resembles a traditional Chinese garden, leaders and celebrities from the Asia-Pacific were welcomed as “friends and neighbors” of China.
On Monday evening, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted a grand banquet for guests to attend the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
Before the banquet, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan welcomed the guests at the entry.
“Your suits and dresses are in Chinese style. This draw us closer. The Xi couple and guests were all wearing outfits made of silk and specially designed to represent China’s rich history and old tradition. Xi was in dark purple while others chose different colors from turquoise, indigo blue,crimson to brown.
“Your suits and dresses are in Chinese style. This draw us closer. It will also appear to ordinary Chinese who see you (from TV and photos) that you come here just like calling on a neighbor or old.
The banquet was held in the National Aquatics Center, dubbed “Water Cube”, right opposite to the National Stadium. Both are the Beijing Olympic landmarks.
“We chose here to welcome you because water is an important symbol in our culture and APEC is linked by the Pacific Ocean,” Xi said. “Everyone here is responsible to make the Pacific the true ocean of peace, friendship and collaboration.”
The President hailed this evening “a meaningful one” because all the guests came for a common mission, which is to draw up a blueprint for the Asia-Pacific’s long-term development and decide the direction the region will head.
“Tomorrow we will meet at the foot of Yanshan Mountains and by the side of Yanqi Lake,” Xi said.
He called on participants to be free to share their ideas and pool wisdom at tomorrow’s meeting.
After the banquet, the guests enjoyed a feast of folk dance and traditional songs as well as a splendid firework show, accompanied by the performance of 640 drummers in the square outside the Water Cube.
“We would like to deliver a passion and strength that are uniquely Chinese,” said Zhang Yimou, chief director of the performance who also directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
U.S. President Barack Obama, center, with other world leaders gather during the G20 Summit family photo in Brisbane, Australia, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2014.
With Obama are from left to right, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, Chinese President Xi Jinping, British Prime Minister David Cameron, President of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais,Pool)
NOW, look at the picture below
What’s Obama doing? A “thumb-up” sign?
The “thumbs up” is an ancient Pagan hand sign of victory and virility .
Is he cheering himself to be the champion?
But look at his suit, especially his pants all creased & crumpled. Looks like he slept in them!
He looks like such a fool and makes America look even more foolish . The high office of the President should have dignity, prestige, honour, respect, truth (not lies) . . . certainly can’t afford to have a circus clown around.
His ears are popping out straining to hear applause.
Here at the G20 Summit, feeling more comfortable to be among most of his “puppets”, he’s throwing his weight & trampling down Putin, the Russian leader.
Led by Obama, western leaders confront Putin with threat of more sanctions.
Obama looks stupid indeed. Did Putin pound his shoe on the desk?
Hope the incident of “shoe throwing”, as happened to Bush, won’t repeat here.
Putin under pressure might leave G20 Summit early, though it’s confirmed that there’s nothing imminent requiring his attention back in Russia.
ARussian source said that the strongman faces intense pressure from the West over Ukraine.
Apparently, Ukraine & Russia are taking center stage at the Summit.
Despite being under intense pressure, Putin was all smiles, shaking hands with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
Putin’s isolation was evident with his placing on the outer edge for the formal G20 leaders’ photograph. While Obama and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping were met by Australia’s governor general and attorney general when they arrived in Brisbane, Putin was greeted by the assistant defense minister.
By the way, as a matter of protocol, Tony Abbot, Australian Prime Minister & host of the Summit, should be standing in the middle & then be flanked by the rest of the dignities. Could he be pushed aside by Obama?
Well, as Obama been saying “If you’re not with us, then you’re against us!”
Obama at the APEC meeting held recently in Beijing was behaving rather “timidly”. Here he wants to exert his authority, and to show off as who’s the boss.
Interestingly, a side show is being played by the BRICS leaders
meeting ahead of the G20 Summit
See picture below:
BRICS Leaders in unifying spirit
BRICS Leaders
From Left: Vladimir Putin, Nadranda Modi, Dilma Rousseff, Xi Jinping & Jacob Zuma
Body language can relate a host of tales.
Plus just my observation from the photos & on TV news.
Peng Liyuan, the celebrated folk singer, is becoming China’s First Lady through her microphone. Whereas Jackie was a lesser known figure prior to her meeting up with President John Kennedy, Peng Liyuan is a celebrity in her own right. She’s glamorous, cultured, well educated with a master degree in folk music. It was her voice & singing that first wooed the heart of Xi Jinping, the next President-to-be of China.
She’s totally different from all the First Ladies you’ve ever known or heard of.
She’s China’s own & absolutely exceptional.
Until 2007, when Xi Jinping was promoted to top Party leader in Shanghai, his wife Peng Liyuan was a fixture at government-sponsored events, CCTV Festival Extravaganza which are the country’s largest and most conspicuously events watched by hundreds of millions. Ms. Peng was admired as much for her soprano vocal as she was for the way she exercised them in “shimmering chiffon gowns, with crimson-glossed lips”.
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Her profile is summarily mentioned here:
* Ms. Peng, whose name means “Beauteous Beauty” in Chinese, has been known as a faithful “soldier of the arts.” in a state news agency profile page.
* She is China’s first folk-song master-degree recipient; youngest civilian general in the Chinese army’s musical troupe; honorary professor at Shanghai Teachers’ College.
* Her travels include trips to “various revolutionary districts, impoverished mountainous regions, and minority neighborhoods.”
* Ms. Peng has also been put forward as a celebrity ambassador for issues of public health including AIDS,requiring her to lobby foreign governments to help cure such dreadful disease & others.
* A friend and photographer once took pity on young Peng and snapped her first picture, immortalizing the young star for whom camera lenses would, soon enough, become a constant companion. That was late 60s or early 70s when she first set her eyes on a camera.
* The glamorous starlet initially dismissed the future President as a xiang ba lao, a country bumpkin with coarse skin who wasn’t much to look at, an impression that isn’t entirely unfounded, according to an article in the Zhanjiang Evening News in 2007 that was widely copied on the Chinese Internet but has since been mostly deleted.
* Even her final verdict came with honest qualifiers: “Isn’t [he] the one I’ve been looking for? Unsophisticated but really intelligent.” As for Mr. Xi, he was quoted as telling her that he knew she would be his wife within 40 minutes of meeting her.
She has also described how she was introduced to Mr. Xi through a mutual friend when he was working as the deputy mayor of the eastern port of Xiamen in 1986. Mr. Xi had been married once before, to the daughter of a Chinese ambassador to Britain, but that only lasted three years when her own desire to study abroad overtook Xi’s political ambition, and they had no children.
Political analysts say Ms. Peng, who is now 49, is already helping to bolster and soften Mr. Xi’s public image in a country that, stimulated by social media, has become increasingly hungry for news about its leaders and their personal lives.
She has already broken the mould by talking about her relationship with Mr. Xi prior to his promotion to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2007.
“When he comes home, I’ve never thought of it as though there’s some leader in the house,” she once told a state-run magazine. “In my eyes, he’s just my husband. When I get home, he doesn’t think of me as some famous star. In his eyes, I’m simply his wife.”
She has however taken a few tentative steps into the limelight again in recent years, fuelling expectations that she will be the first spouse of a Chinese leader to play an active “first lady” role after her husband takes power in October or November.
Last year, as mentioned, she became a Goodwill Ambassador for Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS for the World Health Organization – a job that requires her to help lobby governments around the world to take action to prevent and cure the two diseases.
And after the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province in May 2008, she staged special performances in affected areas and announced publicly that their daughter, Xi Mingze, who was then 16 at the time, had volunteered to help relief efforts – another first for a Chinese leader’s family.
Come this fall, when Peng’s First Lady identity eclipses her superstar status, we must await to see the transformation in our dazzling star. Would she remain a noble, dignified mother only & a faithful wife?
The question is “Will she do anything exceptional to further boost the image of China? Or like her three other predecessors retreat into the background & remain a mystery?”
Paul Chong's Blog 