The presidents of the world’s two greatest superpowers issued a surprise joint statement today intended to ‘clear up certain misunderstandings’ in the light of recent revelations that both countries routinely engage in massive deep state surveillance operations.
‘I fully intended to skewer my gracious host for his hypocrisy in constantly making allegations about Chinese ‘cyberwarfare’ while securing access to basically what everyone is doing everywhere’ said China’s Xi.
‘But all I could say was ‘dude, that’s awesome.’ “
The two men immediately bonded over the audacity of the NSA’s prism programme, leading Obama to drop plans to lambast his Chinese counterpart over human rights.’
‘Freedom of expression, assembly, elections, yada yada’ said the US President. ‘It’s all good stuff. But it’s a bit hard to drone on about it with a straight face when you’re trying to ensure that no-one, anywhere gets out of line.’
‘And anyway, what’s the point? We banged on about the open internet for years but we could never get that guy or his predecessors to let our back doors into his country.’
A chuckling President Xi said that China still had much to learn from the United States. “We keep running round like blue arsed flies putting down demonstrations, chucking people in jail and so on. But really, why not loosen up a bit? I’d quite like to be actually elected to something – it looks like fun - and clearly it makes no odds when you look at the big picture. Maybe China’s ready for democracy.”
Asked if the new-found friendship between the two would lead to a weakening of the US pivot to Asia, President Obama said that he thought it time to revive the policy of spheres of interest.
“We’re interested in what you lot are doing, President Xi’s interested in what his lot are doing. “
President Xi agreed. “Just so long as everyone’s covered. That’s the important thing.”
We banged on about the open internet for years but we could never get that guy or his predecessors to let our back doors into his country
Funny you should mention spheres of interest. I once reviewed a book by a US historian about the rise of S of I post-WWII. The argument all the way through was that S of I were a very very bad thing, for the specific and openly-stated reason that the US should be able to influence whoever, whatever and wherever it damn well pleased. Because, well, obviously.
Posted by: Phil | June 09, 2013 at 11:48 AM