It was a warm gesture on a chilly night when Vladimir Putin wrapped a shawl around the wife of Xi Jinping while the Chinese President chatted with Barack Obama. The only problem — Mr. Putin came off looking gallant, the Chinese summit host gauche and inattentive.
Worse still were off-colour jokes that began to circulate about the real intentions of the divorced Russian President, a heartthrob among many Chinese women for his macho, man-of-action image.
That was too much for the Chinese authorities.
The incident at a performance linked to this week’s Asia-Pacific summit originally was broadcast on state broadcaster CCTV and spread online as a forwarded video. But it was soon scrubbed clean from the Chinese Internet.
“Mr. Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, was once a popular folk singer more famous than her husband, and in contrast to her predecessors she has taken on a much more public role, prominently joining her husband on trips abroad as part of China’s soft power push.
