© Strategic Culture Foundation
Reagan's joke goes as follows: Less than one family out of seven in the Soviet Union owns an automobile. Most of the automobiles are driven by the bureaucrats. The government furnishes them and drivers and so forth. So an order went out one day to the police that anyone caught speeding, anyone no matter who, gets a ticket. Well, Gorbachev came out of his country home, his dacha. He was late getting to the Kremlin. There was his limousine and driver waiting. He told the driver to get in the back seat; he'd drive it. Down the road he went and he passed two motorcycle cops. One took off after him and, pretty soon, he's back with his buddy and his buddy says "Well did you give him a ticket?" And he said "Noo". "Well", his buddy said, "why not"? "Oh", he said, "too important". "Well" his buddy said, "we are told to give anybody a ticket, no matter who it is". "Oh, no no" he said, "this one was different, I couldn't...". "Well", his buddy said, "who was it"? He said "I couldn't recognise him, but his driver was Gorbachev".
As jokes go, it is funny enough and it lands the appropriate ideological punch, which Reagan delivers well. The importance to us of this joke and of Reagan is that Reagan had been a successful communicator and Hollywood actor, once starring in Bedtime for Bonzo opposite an actual monkey. Further, unlike the Ukrainian dictator, Reagan was a democrat of sorts, who insisted that his opponents in the New Hampshire primary be allowed argue their corner. Zelensky, as we know, simply offs them.
So, on the one hand, we have Reagan the great communicator and successful actor and, on the other, we have the dregs of Kiev, who could not even dress or act appropriately when meeting the Pope, to whom we shall shortly return in the context of China.
But, to be fair to Zelensky, he is an even-handed ignoramus. Having been refused a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Zelensky suggested Li was not a high enough official to be worth meeting as the Chinese Premier, according to this idiot, does not call the shots in China.
As Zelensky, who is probably as much an expert on China's political structures as he is on Ukrainian military matters, helpfully explained, "There is a Chinese Premier - then our prime minister will meet with him. I would love to meet with the leader of China. As far as I know, [in China] Xi Jinping makes decisions, and in Ukraine, I make decisions. I don't need just any dialogues; I need important decisions from the leaders who make these decisions."
So there you go. Li is not even Xi's chauffeur and Xi, China's Zelensky, calls all the shots on the limitless array of matters China's leaders (plural case) have to contend with.
Just prior to Davos, Li had visited Ireland, where the President, the Prime Minister and enough local political flunkeys to fill a football stadium were all over him hoping, no doubt, to prise some loose change from that East Asian economic powerhouse through the good graces and keen professionalism of Li and his travelling team. Although Li's Wikipedia entry can be read here, the Irish media claimed he is China's second most powerful man and, as such, would definitely have the ear of President Xi.
All of which brings us to Kazakhstan where President Xi declined meeting Pope Francis because, so he said, of time constraints. Although the Vatican had to take that rebuff on the kisser, no doubt they had an appreciation of China's need to act tough and save face, an important and well acknowledged attribute amongst the east Asians. Be that as it may, Pope Francis was able to meet Hong Kong's (imprisoned) Cardinal Joseph Zen in the Vatican only three short months after Xi allegedly gave Pope Francis the finger in Central Asia.
The Vatican, you see, used diplomacy and not the Luca Brasi sort of offer, which is all Zelensky and his fellow thugs understand.
And, whilst I remain critical of China, I can see that Xi, Li and the rest of them have mountains of work in front of them and that Xi, no more than Li, is not the Holy Spirit. Not only can he not be in all places at the same time but, in all probability, he could not fit the Pope into his Kazakh schedule but, had Xi met him, then Xi would probably have been appropriately suited and booted to best play his part as a world leader. Xi, or Li for that matter, would no more take sartorial tips from Zelensky than they would heed advice from that parasite on any other matter.
Zelensky, you see, is not a political leader, as Xi or Li are or as Hollywood actor Reagan was; he is cut from a far inferior cloth. He is a cheap hustler, who earned his bread by cross dressing and now keeps himself in clover by panhandling the world, China, the new Japan, included if he had his way.
Some years ago, when Japan was cock of the walk, some Latin American leader or other asked the Japanese prime minister how his country could emulate Japan's economic success. The Japanese Prime Minister told him that there were two ways, to either work hard like the Japanese or to borrow from Japan.
Though Zelensky and his cronies could try to emulate Xi, Li and China's other 1.4 billion citizens by working hard, the begging bowl seems to be their preferred option. But China has far more deserving cases from Gaza and Syria to countries contiguous to it. And, whatever we think of Gaza, Syria and the 14 countries, Kazakhstan included, that border China, we can be sure that the diplomats from those countries would act much more professionally and be far more gracious than that jumped up male stripper from the sewers of Kiev, who now plays the part of a panhandling President that is a cross between Coco the Clown and Bozo, former POTUS Reagan's pet monkey.
I believe it must have been completely on the contrary: he said that having been rejected by Li. „Something had to be said”, you know, to not look that pathetically.