Sarah Palin in Hong Kong
Sarah Palin’s first brush with China has not made her many friends.
“Palin Gives Speech in Hong Kong, Called Boring, Members of the Audience Left Early” was how Ming Pao, a popular Hong Kong newspaper, put it in a headline today.
A commenter in a Chinese Web forum wrote of Palin’s speech: “This is such a joke. Since when does China need the U.S. to point the way to the future?”
Palin went to Hong Kong, which is the closest she has come to mainland China, to provide what she called “a view right from Main Street” to an investors’ conference Wednesday, and though she asked that it stay closed to the media, excerpts have crept out.
“We simply cannot turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that could undermine international peace and security,” she said, according to a Wall Street Journal blog.
“Here, China has some one thousand missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer though believes that it poses a serious threat to Beijing.”
She also made statements that are likely to linger in the Chinese consciousness for a while, including:
“The more politically open and just China is, the more Chinese citizens of every ethnic group will be able to settle disputes in court rather than on the streets. The more open it is, the less we’ll be concerned about its military buildup and its intentions.”
And: “In seeking Asia’s continued peace and prosperity, we should seek, as we did in Europe, an Asia whole and free. Free from domination by any one power…”
Republicans have traditionally played better in China than Democrats because the latter are more likely to make human-rights demands.
But with Obama playing well in China these days, I have to wonder if the current iterations of American politics is altering Chinese stereotypes.
Chinese papers, after all, seemed to take a skeptical line on Palin’s visit: “Palin Delivers Speech in Hong Kong, Says U.S. Will Help China Find the Future” as the Oriental Post put it.
(Incidentally, I don’t see that line in excerpts of the speech, but such is the result of barring the press and forcing it to rely on leaks.)
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