Chaguan | Armchair warriors

摘要

Revealingly often, when foreigners meet Chinese leaders the encounter is a pain in the neck. The cause is not mysterious. For reasons that may involve both high culture and low political calculation, important visitors to China are typically invited to sink into one of a pair of side-by-side armchairs, at one end of a formal reception room. There the guest must sit, head twisted through 90 degrees, to see and hear a host whose opening remarks may stretch to an hour.