“U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen chooses authentic Cantonese cuisine and uses chopsticks well,” learn one headline from atmosphere broadcaster China Central Tv.
Chinese language social media platforms on Friday have been awash with main points of Yellen’s first meal in China all the way through a week-long consult with geared toward bettering U.S.-China ties and addressing what Washington sees as unfair Chinese language business practices. Hashtags matching to Yellen’s eating alternatives drew virtually 10 million perspectives on Weibo.
The breathless atmosphere media protection of her eating alternatives or dexterity with chopsticks displays an attempt through Beijing to solid Yellen’s consult with in a favorable bright, particularly to an more and more anti-American Chinese language population. It underlines how Beijing sees Yellen as most likely its very best hope for making improvements to business ties with Washington and serving to its personal unwell economic system.
“Overall, Yellen’s visit to China sends a positive signal regarding the economic and trade relations between the two countries,” the state-run International Instances concluded in an editorial on Thursday. On Friday, Yellen met with the Guangdong governor, Wang Weizhong, and stated the US isn’t looking for to “decouple” or shorten itself off from the Chinese language economic system.
In a distant assembly Friday with the American Chamber of Trade, she stated she would discuss to Chinese language officers about unfair business practices in opposition to U.S. companies. Earlier than the go back and forth, Yellen additionally stated she would elevate her issues that overproduction in China is leading to a glut of exports, particularly in electrical cars and alternative blank era.
Main points of her consult with in Chinese language media experiences come with that Yellen ate at a storied eating place in Guangzhou frequented through the likes of Chinese language modernist editor Lu Xun. She used to be served a menu of greater than a lot dishes, together with roast goose and barbecued beef, shrimp dumplings, iced candy and bitter beef and egg tarts.
“What she ordered was very representative of Cantonese dishes,” a staffer on the Tao Tao Ju eating place informed Guangzhou Day-to-day Information.
Day the eating place had organized a personal room for Yellen, her crew asked that walls be taken ailing so she may just consume along alternative consumers, the ones experiences famous — a trait that used to be showed through a Treasury authentic.
The Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Night time Information additionally ran a profile of Yellen’s zeal for meals, together with a Yunnan eating place she visited utmost while the place she ate mushrooms that could have hallucinogenic properties if no longer cooked correctly. (A mushroom casserole used to be additionally at the menu at Tao Tao Ju.)
“Official public opinion is quietly changing,” prevalent commentator and previous journalist Zhang Feng wrote in an essay on WeChat. Zhang famous that the comfortable protection of Yellen’s familiarity and idolize of Chinese language meals — which some commentators attributed to her pace in San Francisco — used to be paying homage to how Chinese language media reported at the visits of international leaders within the life.
In 2011, a miracle forbid at a Beijing eatery through then-Vice President Joe Biden used to be additionally intently reported: He ordered noodles, steamed dumplings and chilly appetizers corresponding to smashed cucumbers.
Nonetheless, years of worsening ties, in addition to authentic feedback and atmosphere media protection demonizing the US, have had an affect on Chinese language population opinion. Below experiences of Yellen’s dinner alternatives, web customers ridiculed the protection, asking why there used to be not anything extra really extensive to record on.
“How about instead of focusing so much on what Yellen eats, you focus on how they plan to make things difficult for China,” one stated.
Vic Chiang and Pei Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this record.
