It’s called ‘Sajin Jeongchi’ in North Korea; and serves a useful purpose for its reclusive leader. There is nothing derogatory about the words though and it’s in fact used all over the world — ‘Sajin Jeongchi’ is Korean for the use of photographs in politics!
Indeed, why speak when a picture can speak a thousand words?
Only using stills could, however, pose problems for the less-reclusive, more-gregarious leaders from across the world. Imagine the sense of collective loss we would all feel if ‘Musk Vs. Zuckerberg: The Cage Fight’ is reduced to a still, and not live streamed!
Because if pictures are worth a thousand words, then videos are probably worth a million!
And what better than a montage of a centenarian US statesman meeting the Chinese President?
It’s in this context, that the release of video snippets from Henry Kissinger’s meeting with President Xi Jinping in China, during the former’s recent visit — as a private citizen — assumed some significance.
The videos created some stir on social media that the visit was an attempt by Kissinger to placate frayed tempers between the two superpowers.
Kissinger is a known figure in China; after all, he along with Nixon was instrumental in drawing out a reclusive China onto the world stage in 1971. That breakthrough remains his crowning glory yet!
Kissinger is an ‘either you love him or loathe him’ kind of a diplomat, depending on which side of the lens of history you view his body of work from. Arguably, what takes the sheen off Kissinger’s 1971 China triumph is the disasters that his policies led to in East Timor, Cambodia, Laos, Chile, and East Pakistan.
So, the man who once famously said ‘America has no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests’ was unlikely to have met the Chinese President to discuss gallium and germanium export bans.
Could it have been Taiwan then? Unlikely.
Any discussions around Taiwan would have been awkward for Kissinger because he (along with Nixon) claimed credit for the One China Policy formulated in 1972 that considers Taiwan to be a part of the PRC.
It’s unlikely then it wasn’t any of these issues.
There was perhaps nothing more to this than a 100-year-old US statesman meeting the Chinese President.
In effect, it was just Kissinger homing in on perhaps his only major career triumph.
A sepia-tinted picture would have done just fine.In effect, it was just Kissinger homing in on perhaps his only major career triumph.
