The new head of the British foreign office called his wife a Chinese Japanese. An innocent mistake or a serious mistake?
The Minister of foreign Affairs of great Britain Jeremy hunt is visiting China. But all the titles of the publications about the trip is dedicated to the ridiculous stipulation that he made.
Hunt wanted to seek the location of the receiving party and remind him that his wife is Chinese. But instead called her Japanese. Those present laughed, and hunt quickly recovered. But there is a gaffe hit the headlines, and the Minister says that he made a terrible mistake.
Lucia Guo was born in XI’an, in Central China. She met hunt in 2008, when he worked in Warwick University. The couple has three children.What is said hunt
Hunt’s remark, delivered at a meeting with Chinese Minister of foreign Affairs, was: “My wife is Japanese… my wife is Chinese! What a terrible mistake.”
“My wife is Chinese, and my kids are half Chinese, their grandparents are Chinese from Xian, they have a lot of relatives all over China,” immediately added the British Minister.
So why this clause has caused so much noise?
1. China and Japan are bitter rivals
To confuse China with any other country — a bad idea if you are trying to win at the Chinese government. But to confuse China with Japan is probably the worst option possible.
Relations between the two countries are developing, no matter for decades. They twice fought with each other and still continue to argue over the ownership of territories in the East China sea.
Many Chinese of the older generation to this day are reluctant to buy Japanese goods, accusing the country in seeking to downplay the scale of atrocities of the Japanese military.
In 2012, in China, a wave of anti-Japanese demonstrations due to the aggravation of the situation around the disputed Islands.