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OK, listen [to the red songs], you won’t comprehend them anyway. It will be as if you were listening to folk songs.
听吧，反正听不懂，就当听民歌了～
A commenter on Huanqiu Shibao, on former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder‘s (reported) desire to listen to a red song concert in Chongqing.
I can see the day when every foreign govt or western enterprise rescued by Chinese investment will have its own choir belting out the whole Red Song Book. In fact, it will probably be a mandatory provision written into the rescue package.
I think we are a long way from exhausting the humour issuing from Chongqing yet. JR. As a major bridge between the East and the West, you should be posting the words and music of a different rousing red ditty on this site each week.
Just a suggestion.
I can envisage Helmut Kohl and his driver joining in while keeping time with their beer mugs, but not Sarkozy or Angela Merkel.
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Well, I voted for Glamouruz Gerd‘s party every time, Tai De, and still think of him as a much better chancellor than Merkel, because he had the guts to implement some long-stalled and overdue reforms. Yes – some of them were botched, and another bunch of them is part of the European imbalance of supply and consumption which led to the Euro crisis. But his government did more than his predecessors or his successor to help Germany’s economy to become competitive again.
His China and Russia policies, on the other hand, spelled disaster. It was fine to side with Moscow and Beijing during the run-up to the Iraq war, but not before or after. I understand that in a speech while in Chongqing, Schröder pointed out how German companies’ investment in Chongqing showed their confidence in the city’s development.
When it comes to business, **** human rights, right? He may not have been aware about the backgrounds, but he must have known what Maoism was or is. Here is the story in French.
The nice thing about Schroeder is that frequently, where he shows up, the event helps to highlight what’s wrong with our (foreign, that is) policies. As a person, Merkel comes across as much more respectable than her predecessor. The problem: she’s a lousy chancellor.
I have reliable information that Hungary has just formed a Red Choir, KT. I’m also having reliable hunches that Merkel and Sarkozy would be throwing themselves into the ideological dust just as willingly as Viktor Orbán does, if they had inherited a mess similar as has Hungary’s government. 😉
But Helmut Kohl needs no driver anymore. He’s in a wheelchair, and unlikely to leave it for a kow-tow. But he was quite willing to serve business delegations while in office.
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Dave Cameron at least had the guts to make some kind of statement:
“”We applaud the economic transformation that has taken place in China … But, as I said in Beijing last November, we do believe the best guarantor of prosperity and stability is for economic and political progress to go in step together.””
Despite my recently gain status as an expert on Germany, I can’t say that I know much about Gerd Schroeder. This, however, will not stop me from writing a long article saying that Germany will not be able to move on until it comes to terms with the legacy of his rule . . .
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*Snickers* – I think you’ll have to go much further back than to Schroeder, Foarp. Maybe back to the guys with moustaches – the Kaisers, or the Fuehrer. Or back to the era from 1618 to 1648 and after, when my motherland was weak, and all those evil powers around us interfered with our internal affairs, and played one of our warring kingdoms off against the other. Or to the days before Bismarck introduced social insurance.
Glamouruz Gerd (I’m beginning to like that name, Tai De) was important, too, but probably not that important. Besides, he had no moustache. Nor has his successor.
That said, Schroeder took bigger steps domestically, than his predecessors (with the probable exception of Adenauer and Brandt, but Brandt’s policies were of course more popular than Schroeder’s).
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@JR – Face it JR, Schroeder was 68% right, 32% wrong (or was it four times out of four?). Plus, I have it on good authority that Frau Merkel is trying to grow a moustache, but the beard keeps getting in the way:
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