Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Accordion Files

I believe it was P.G. Wodehouse who correctly remarked that "a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't." Today's news provides confirmation:

On Thursday night, Mr. Bush was the guest of honor at a banquet given by Mr. Jiang at the Great Hall of the People, where after dinner Mr. Jiang serenaded the president and Laura Bush, with "O Sole Mio" in Italian, to the accompaniment of an accordion player.

Well, that certainly must have added to the "Roman Holiday" atmosphere.

Japan's Junichiro Koizumi also does a mean Elvis.

UPDATE: Speaking of "Roman Holiday", Michael Ledeen points out (link for WSJ subscribers) today:

China is not, as is invariably said, in transition from communism to a freer and more democratic state. It is, instead, something we have never seen before: a maturing fascist regime. This new phenomenon is hard to recognize, both because Chinese leaders continue to call themselves communists, and also because the fascist states of the first half of the 20th century were young, governed by charismatic and revolutionary leaders, and destroyed in World War II. China is anything but young, and it is governed by a third or fourth generation of leaders who are anything but charismatic.

..Like their European predecessors, the Chinese claim a major role in the world because of their history and culture, not because of their current power, or scientific or cultural accomplishments. Just like Germany and Italy in the inter-war period, China feels betrayed and humiliated, and seeks to avenge historic wounds. China even toys with some of the more bizarre notions of the earlier fascisms, like the program to make the country self-sufficient in wheat production -- the same quest for "autarky" that obsessed both Hitler and Mussolini.

It is therefore wrong to think of contemporary China as an intensely unstable system, riven by the democratic impulses of capitalism on the one hand, and the repressive instincts of communism on the other. Fascism may well have been a potentially stable system, despite the frenzied energies of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. After all, fascism did not fall as the result of internal crisis; it was destroyed by superior force of arms. Fascism was alarmingly popular; Hitler and Mussolini swept to power atop genuine mass movements, and neither Italians nor Germans produced more than token resistance until the war began to be lost.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at February 22, 2002 8:45 AM | Technorati inbound links"); ?>