President Bush and First Lady Greeted by Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing Upon Arrival in Beijing
We can't get away from this guy even when we move to the other side of the world. I also thought I could go through my whole life having as little in common with George W. Bush as possible. Well, there went that fervent wish; and there went the neighborhood.
The photograph below was taken during a reception with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing; Ellen is shaking hands with a very jovial Foreign Minister Li; the old dude in the center is me. The Foreign Minister has a firm handshake and an engaging personality with a reassuring charm that western politicians would do well to emulate.
There is a much larger story behind the photograph at top. For that you should read the excerpted article below, fromThe New York Times.
BEIJING, Sunday, Nov. 20 - Fresh from another impassioned defense of his war leadership, President Bush arrived here on Saturday evening to defuse a host of tensions with China, even as many in Beijing argue that he will be able to apply little true pressure on the world's fastest-rising power.
Speaking just hours after a raucous debate over Iraq strategy unfolded in the House of Representatives, a defiant-sounding Mr. Bush told cheering American troops at Osan Air Base, south of Seoul, "We will stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory that our brave troops have fought for."
But in a sign of how much Iraq has dominated Mr. Bush's weeklong tour of Asia, he only vaguely alluded to North Korea in his forceful half-hour speech, delivered just 48 miles from the militarized border between the Koreas, where he stopped on his way to Beijing. Nor did he mention the stockpile of suspected nuclear weapons that the North boasts about and that the C.I.A. believes has expanded since the war in Iraq began. China is the key player in Mr. Bush's effort to find a diplomatic way to entice North Korea to give up those weapons.
