Down in the antipode this week, an international scuffle broke out and it had nothing to do with the criminally atrocious officiating last night in both the Germany/Serbia and US/Slovenia matches…*
Russel Norman, MP and leader of the New Zealand Green Party, marked the arrival of Chinese heir-to-be-but-we’re-still-not-telling-anybody-officially-yet Xi Jinping to Wellington by waving a Τibetan flag and calling for Τibet’s independence.
A tacky move I’ll grant you, and one that probably would have rated a mention on page 23 of the Dominion Post (right after the rugby scores) if the Chinese security forces had the sense the Good Lord gave to a drunken kakapo.** Lest the very sight of the Τibetan colors mortally wound the delicate sensitivities of CHTBBWSNTAOY, Xi Jinping’s security detail harassed the MP with the Chinese counterintelligence weapons of today (the umbrella) and yesterday (a good old fashioned elbow in the ribs).
Mr. Norman wishes to press charges. Good luck with that.
The WSJ has a roundup of the mini-fracas and the international fallout which ends on a point I’ve made in this space not a few times. In trying to “manage” situations which have a potential to be embarrassing for the Party or the PRC, Chinese officials and their goons have an innate knack for displays of staggering buffoonery that THEN become the story. As the WSJ notes in the final paragraph, if Xi Jinping and his boyos had just sucked it up and ignored the blatherings of a Kiwi lefty politiciain, would this be making international news? Probably not. But then again, nobody ever became poorer for betting against the propensity of the CCP for diplomatic foolishness, rash overreaction, or political shortsightedness when the issue of China’s claims to Τibet are questioned publicly. So…I guess this is all just par for the course.
UPDATE 2:30 p.m. CST. WSJ follows-up with a report on China’s official reaction to the incident.
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*Seriously, we’ve found Tim Donaghy’s Malian cousin. I can’t even speak rationally about this right now. First the refs absolutely JOBBED the Celtics yesterday morning and then last night’s debacle in South Africa. No joke. I’m a wreck. I just might seriously explore an intravenous drug habit to take my mind off of it all…Either that or I REALLY need to stop caring about sports so much. Either way.
**I think it’s a kind of parrot. I just love the word. It’s the five-year old inside us all. And if you don’t think that my next fantasy baseball team will be named “J.D. Drew takes a kakapo” then you don’t know me.
It’s just one of those Chinese things where you have to smile in exasperation. While the free tibet MP probably deserved to be smacked around a bit for being a headline grabbing dick, I really just wish that Xi Jingping can just smile and wave in his direction then go about his business.
Even from a cost-benefit analysis POV, the embarrassment of getting a Tibetan flag waved at you is orders of magnitude smaller than what this thing has become.
It is a parrot. The world’s biggest parrot, I believe, and seriously endangered. It makes a big booming noise.