{"id":189780,"date":"2010-02-15T10:42:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T15:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/02\/15\/i-dont-think-that-the-chinese-gentleman-is-joking\/"},"modified":"2010-02-15T10:42:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T15:42:00","slug":"i-dont-think-that-the-chinese-gentleman-is-joking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/02\/15\/i-dont-think-that-the-chinese-gentleman-is-joking\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don&#8217;t Think that the Chinese Gentleman is Joking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2010\/02\/13\/several_years_ago_i_met\/\">Steve Clemons notes the following discussion that he had with a Chinese official some years back<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>Several years ago, I met with the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning staff of China&#8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I asked him what he was working on &#8212; and what China&#8217;s grand strategy was.<\/p>\n<p>His reply: &#8220;We are trying to figure out how to keep you Americans distracted in small Middle Eastern countries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s pretty memorable when one can joke and be truthful at the same time.\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, it&#8217;s funny, but I&#8217;m not sure if it&#8217;s funny &#8220;ha ha&#8221;, or funny &#8220;strange&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Clemons notes the following discussion that he had with a Chinese official some years back: Several years ago, I met with the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning staff of China&#8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I asked him what he was working on &#8212; and what China&#8217;s grand strategy was. His reply: &#8220;We &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1170,964,986],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-foreign-relations","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}