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Does this War Make Me Look Fat?
As you know, I’m a fan of writing of this column on a Sunday morning while watching Sunday Morning on CBS. Please, please, before you head to the phone or the keyboard— I don’t need anyone to tell me I should be listening to CBC on the radio or watching CBC on television. I am a big fan of CBS Sunday Morning. It’s my thing on Sunday. The End.
Often, after Sunday Morning is over, I just keep writing while the feed rolls on into Face the Nation. At first I was just too lazy to change the channel, and now I’m “into” that show, too. Most of the time it is background noise while I write. However, just when I thought I’d heard it all, Margaret Brennan interviewed the Chinese Ambassador to the USA. This morning I realized I know exactly nothing about diplomacy, politics, asskissing and all of the rest of it. Zero. Zilch. Bupkiss. Zip. Simply put, this morning the question Ms. Brennan put to the Ambassador was “Does China support the Russians in the attack on Ukraine?”. In my world it’s a pretty simple simple “yes” or “no” answer followed by a brief explanation. Silly me. Obviously, it’s like I said, “I know nothing”.
Qin Gang is the ambassador. He’s plays the role of ambassador. He’s a diplomat. He’s in the United States to represent the Chinese government. On Sunday, on Face the Nation, butter would not melt in his mouth. I wanted him to be horrified, or at least act like he was horrified by the nightmare in Ukraine. I wanted him to be angry, or at least wrinkle his brow and use an angry tone of voice. I wanted him to cry big, fat humanitarian tears about what is happening. Instead he was, well, he was diplomatic. He was stone-faced. His responses to the questions were rehearsed. I felt chilled-tothe- bone listening to him. It’s enough for me to say “I could never be a diplomat” because I’m just not diplomatic and I don’t have any internal dialogue. I have practised keeping my dialogue in check. I’m simply not able to do so. And, while I was raging from the couch, Qin Gang was snipping answers off like he was trimming the unwanted growth on a plant. Qin Gang toed the Chinese party line as if his life depended on it, and I suppose it did. He spoke about how his country continued to supply the ordinary citizens of Russia with the basic necessities. He mentioned sending food, sleeping bags, baby formula and medicine. He actually had me at “baby formula”. Who isn’t a sucker for a humanitarian aid delivery of sustenance for starving infants! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to deprive a child of nourishment, but I think Russia is very capable of producing infant feeding products and likely all of the other ordinary citizen products being sent their way. He mentioned how China and Russia have “a trust relations. It was built over many years.” The rest of the interview was frustrating and, quite frankly, too diplomatic. I’ll bet if I looked for the word “diplomatic” in the dictionary, Qin Gang’s picture would be underneath the description.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for diplomacy. It works really well when you’ve been asked “Does this shirt make me look fat?” The Ambassador hinted that China was in a trust relations position with Russian and that made it possible to be in a unique position to address international peace talks. He was very diplomatic. Pardon me while I gag a little bit. He assured Brennan that China’s relationship with Russia is an asset in the effort to solve the crisis in a peaceful way in spite of China’s abstaining from the International Court of Justice vote to order Russian to stop its military actions. To be clear, China was the only country to stand with Russian. Hmm. Qin Gang went on to say China “upholds the UN purposes and principles, including respecting the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine”. This made me a teeny bit hopeful. Diplomacy might not be such a bad thing. And then? Well, and then the Ambassador offered, as if by way of an excuse, “There is a complexity of the history of the Ukraine issue.” WTH!! Brennan then asked if the Chinese president would ask Putin to “back down” and Qin said China would be surprised if Putin would back down “by condemnation” and closed the discussion by saying “We stand. We need courage and we need good diplomacy.”
The whole world should be grateful I’m just a writer and not a diplomat. I say, if the shirt makes you look fat and you’ve asked me what I think, I’m likely to tell you to take a good look in the mirror. But if you do look fat, you’ve asked the right gal.
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