IT used to be Chinese emperors who got the old kowtow, the reverential kneeling and the bowing, the head touching the ground.
There was also, of course, the grand kowtow – three kneelings and nine kowtows, on your knees three times and knocking your head off the ground nine.
Frankly, performing the grand kowtow in a kimono would have given our Prime Minister a little dignity last week.
His performance and that of his ministers – prostrate before the visiting Chinese president Xi Jinping – was even more embarrassing, abject and morally bereft.
It is hard not to suspect George Osborne was most determined to roll out the red carpet and golden carriage.
Becoming best buds with Beijing is another plank – his Northern Powerhouse, his assault on tax credits – in the raft that he hopes will float him into Number 10.
Good luck to him but he’ll still have to look at himself when he’s shaving in the morning. Of course, China has huge sway on our economy. When they sneeze (or dump cheap steel in the markets) Scotland catches cold (or loses jobs and the tattered remnants of a once mighty industry).
But did Britain – or rather Britain’s leaders – really have to sook up to Xi Jinping with such boak-inducing fervour. Big deals have apparently been struck, although some of the terms might bear scrutiny, but did we really have to demean ourselves to do business with a country where, say Amnesty, 245 lawyers prepared to take on the authorities have been targeted since July, with some now missing?
Did we need to be quite so oily to win favour with a country where human rights activists dying in custody; where some are arrested for handing out leaflets exposing domestic violence; and where a Nobel Peace Prize winner is still behind bars?
And talking of politically-motivated jail time, why did the Metropolitan Police hold Chinese dissident Shao Jiang overnight for holding up a banner in London protesting Xi Jinping’s visit? And why did they then raid his home and seize his possessions?
Meanwhile, the regimented supporters of the president were given pride of place on the Mall as he arrived for his state
banquet – where Prince Charles, to his credit, was conspicuous by his absence – while those protesters not huckled off were shuffled into the shadows.
Cameron and Osborne – sneering at the naivety of their critics – will no doubt be happy with their grand kowtow last week and the ensuing Chinese billions.
It still seems a cheap price for a country’s dignity.
