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--- Phhh... Those efforts of Beijing are restricted to saying that China will do something about fentanyl. & about the ME, even Blinken talks about possibilities, not reality.

True. But you also know how the Chinese are. They're like pouty kids. You've got to find (or invent) SOME damned thing to praise them about, even if it requires overinflating a very minor achievement to massage their sensitive egos, before criticizing something else. Otherwise they wall up.

The chances of China actually doing anything to cooperate are one in a million. But that's one more chance per million than there'd have been if Blinken hadn't thrown them a bone in his speech.

"True. But you also know how the Chinese are. They're like pouty kids. You've got to find (or invent) SOME damned thing to praise them about, even if it requires overinflating a very minor achievement to massage their sensitive egos, before criticizing something else. Otherwise they wall up."
Luckily, that's not generally true. That mostly goes for officials, businessmen & the ideologically challenged. Rarely had that problem with my students. They were able to cope quite well with my straightforward honesty.

Rarely had that problem with my students. They were able to cope quite well with my straightforward honesty.

You had a better experience than I did then, and I'm just going to leave it at that. Admittedly, you're not the only China expat of whom that can be said. I seemed to find the worst there was to find.

Well, I have to narrow down what I wrote before. I should have said 'regular students'.
I've had some peculiar courses for - hmm - 'special' students (rich brats who failed the gaokao, but wanted to study in the USA, anyway). Particularly the male students in these classes were problematic.

Yeah, the rich brats you just mentioned sound more like the ones I taught. I spent my first three Beijing years at a school called Chaoyang Aidi, which was basically governed by "the parents are paying good money for an A and it's your job to deliver it, dammit."