The Gong Li Non-Controversy

AP PHOTO/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS/BAI XIAOYAN

Sarah Palin is going to India next month to speak at the 10th annual India Today Conclave, a high profile talk shop of "global thought leaders" hosted in the Indian capital by one of the country's leading magazines (its cover design is conspicuously similar to another newsweekly with a red border). Palin will be speaking alongside heavyweights such as Mohammed ElBaradei — at one stage, the figurehead of Egypt's pro-democracy movement — feminist firebrand Germaine Greer, and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Her speech, according to reports, is tentatively titled "My Vision for America." Televised adventures in Alaska notwithstanding, Palin is not known to be much of a traveler. I was on the scene in September 2009 when she delivered her first speech abroad, in Hong Kong, at a packed conference of bankers and fund managers. Those in attendance represented, according to that conference's PR flaks, some $10 trillion in assets, and though no official figure came out, it's safe to assume Palin commanded a six-figures speaker's fee. Moreover, her address was strictly off-limits to the press, and so we grubby servants of the fourth estate had to chase desperately around the lobby of Hong Kong's Grand Hyatt, seeking comments from pinstriped Masters of the Universe who had heard Palin speak. What we pieced together was... interesting. Here are some highlights, from my report of the event. She spoke of the Great Recession...

Addressing the financial crisis, she declared there was no need for new regulation: "Lack of government wasn't the problem. Government policies were the problem. The markets didn't fail. Government failed."

... talked about her connections to Asia:

According to many delegates, Palin's home state of Alaska dominated the talk. "She rambled on about the place for ages," says an Indian banker with a major U.S. firm. "Palin even talked about Alaska's land bridges with Asia and how animals once went across." Based on a recording it reviewed, the Wall Street Journal says Palin invoked her husband Todd's Eskimo heritage as a sign of shared "bloodlines" between the continents.

... and didn't take many questions:

Though dubbed "a conversation with Sarah Palin," the event turned out to be more of a monologue. She spoke for almost 90 minutes, all the way to 2 p.m., when the session was supposed to end. As an attendee said while walking out, "she clearly wanted to keep talking so there'd be no questions."

In retrospect, it seems the Hong Kong speech was a kind of beginner's level as Palin cultivates her political persona abroad. Insulated by a phalanx of business elites in a slick chrome and glass city that is ruled, ultimately, by authoritarian Beijing, Palin had the luxury of jetting in, checking into her suite at the Hyatt, and slipping away through back corridors surrounded by an intense security cordon. It's unclear if she spent even a moment seeing any of Hong Kong's tourist sites. In any event, no one in the city seemed to care — while Hong Kong's foreign press corps ran around like headless chickens, few of the city's prominent local tabloids even sent a reporter to cover the event. That will probably not be the case in India, where its voluble media — especially its many English language 24-hour cable news networks and newspapers — have the resources and the interest to throw the proverbial full court press at Palin. It's also hard to imagine India Today, a magazine, preventing other journalists from covering the event. Palin and her speechwriters will have to be prepared for the intensity of the media glare that falls on public figures in India. A lot of things can go very wrong for a foreign dignitary caught up in the heat of the moment. Just ask Prince Charles.

The ever sensible (that sounds too dull: I mean it as in the sense of someone who casts a cool eye on conventional wisdom) Imagethief gives a balanced take on the supposed eruption of rage among chinese netizens that pneumatic actress Gong Li has traded in her Chinese passport for Singaporean version, presumably because her husband is from the island. Called “Pardon Me, but who gives a damn about Gong Li anyway,” the post reflects some of my sentiments about what seems an overblown affair, even by web “controversy” standards. Mr. Imagethief also gives a pleasingly catty take on her performances of the last decade or two. He also points out that you can find pretty much anything you want on the Chinese internet, particularly when it comes to nationalist ranting. For what it’s worth, we looked into blogging on this but found that the outrage was by no means universal and that in fact there were a large number of comments that, if not exactly supportive of her decision, certainly expressed understanding, resignation and other sentiments well short of foaming at the mouth rage. Like Imagethief, we will also seize the opportunity to run another photo of Ms. Gong in the, er, unusual costume she donned for the widely snarked-at “Curse of the Golden Flower.”

President Barack Obama huddled with President Hamid Karzai in Chicago on Sunday, urging Afghanistan’s leader to accelerate negotiations with the Taliban over a political solution to the longest war in America’s history. But the prospect for Karzai negotiating successfully with the insurgents is clouded by a question raised by Josef Stalin, on the eve of World War II, in response to the suggestion that he offer concessions to the Pope: “How many divisions does he have?” The Taliban now ask the same question about Karzai. And should the Afghan leader also ask himself the question, he might reach a similarly dispiriting conclusion. Karzai’s independent power base is minimal, as is his ability to influence the outcome of his country’s civil war absent direct U.S. involvement. And that gives neither Karzai nor the Taliban much incentive to cut a deal with the other.