Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Putin upstages both Obama and Xi Jinping



It was a warm gesture on a chilly night when Vladimir Putin wrapped a shawl around the wife of Xi Jinping while the Chinese president chatted with Barack Obama. The only problem: Putin came off looking gallant, the Chinese summit host gauche and inattentive.
Worse still were off-color jokes that began to circulate about the real intentions of the divorced Russian president — a heartthrob among many Chinese women for his macho, man-of-action image.
That was too much for the Chinese authorities.
The incident at a performance linked to this week's Asia-Pacific summit originally was broadcast on state broadcaster CCTV and spread online as a forwarded video. But it was soon scrubbed clean from the Chinese Internet, reflecting the intense control authorities exert over any material about top leaders.


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