Saturday, September 22, 2012

Wen's Voice Cut Off

China's Premier Wen Jiabao was giving an opening remark at the EU-China summit in Brussels. After a long list of achievements reached in his ten years tenure as China's premier, Wen stressed his disappointment over two issues: lifting arms embargo and nonrecognition of fully-fledged market economy status. While Wen was still speaking, the live feed was cut abruptly before he could finish the sentence.

A diplomat who attended the meeting said the request came from China.

It's interesting to learn someone in the Chinese delegation could order speech of Wen, the Prime Minister and No. 3 in CCP, to be cut off. It's also interesting to speculate how did the organizer recognize and accommodate the request to mute the top Chinese official at the meeting.

As the lonely minority among his peers, Wen was always muted on sensitive talks in China. Wen also use his oversea trips to talk about his visions on political reform.

Professor Tian Xie of University of South Carolina Aiken commented that Wen probably wanted to use his last EU-China summit to advocate for importance and urgency of political reforms. The two issues would have been a good talk point for that.

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