President of China Xi Jinping was not forced to hold an umbrella for his wife, First Lady Madame Peng Liyuan, when he arrived in T&T on Friday. Chinese Ambassador to T&T Huang Xingyuan told the T&T Guardian yesterday it was President Xi’s choice to hold the umbrella and it was a practice of Chinese culture to do so. The incident was described by former diplomat Reginald Dumas as one of many protocol lapses that occurred during the State visit last weekend.
In response, Huang invited media to the Chinese Embassy in St Clair, where, using a translator, he expressed satisfaction at the protocols observed by T&T’s protocol officers during the Chinese head of state’s visit. He described the “umbrella incident” as a virtue of his culture that had been twisted to appear as a fault of T&T. “This might be the difference between oriental and western culture. This is a good habit. He (Xi) wanted to hold the umbrella for his wife,” Huang said.
He said he himself and several protocol officers attempted to hold the umbrella for the First Lady but President Xi refused. He said a newspaper article that highlighted the issue may have led to misunderstanding, as someone reading could interpret that the State visit had been poorly received. Huang denied that, producing two letters sent from Xi to T&T President Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar expressing satisfaction with the visit.
“Although T&T is a small country, the protocol work was world-class. The Chief of Protocol and Ministry of Foreign Affairs did a great job,” he said. Commenting on reports about journalists being blocked access to certain meetings on Sunday at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, Huang said that may have been a technical problem or a misunderstanding.
He said all media—local, regional and Chinese—were supposed to be accredited to get access to meetings and added if that was done there should have been no problems. “We welcome T&T journalists to cover all our events but sometimes there are technical problems,” Huang said, saying he regretted that journalists were not able to get all of the interviews and access they required.