Outgoing Australian ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos China recalls how he and his Chinese counterpart broke the ice over a few laughs at a Washington gala.
| On the global stage of diplomacy in Washington DC, relationships mean everything, no matter how unusual the circumstances under which they are forged.
“Borat came out and did his sort of turn. At first [Qin] heard ‘cultural attaché of Kazakhstan’ and he said, ‘is that really?’ and I said, ‘no, no, it’s a joke, it’s Borat’, and he said ‘oh, alright’ and he started to get the joke.” “He was very much a straight-down-the-line diplomat, which you’d expect. I think the Americans might have underestimated him. I think they were surprised when he became foreign minister,” Sinodinos says.
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