A Chinese headache for French diplomacy

"By presenting his late apology to handicapped athlete Jin Jing [she was mistreated during the torch relay in Paris on April 7th], new symbol of Chinese patriotism, French President Nicolas Sarkozy made himself out to be a weakling in the Chinese press and on the Internet. We can compare his attitude to that of Angela Merkel who, recently remained firm after having criticised Chinese human rights policy", writes Jurek Kuczkiewicz. "Combining development of economic exchanges with the promotion of human rights remains a challenge to which no one has yet found the magic formula. But it would be too easy to attribute the errors on this difficult path just to political leaders. Because the attraction of contracts is not only the whim of businessmen and political leaders: if there is someone who doesn't wear running shoes or t-shirts made in China, or who doesn't drive using gas that comes from countries that possess more hydrocarbons than democracy, he can throw the first stone..."

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