Western Media Slams Putin for ‘Hitting on’ Chinese First Lady in Beijing

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (C) places a shawl around German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (R) sits before watching a fragment of the ballet "Ruslan and Lyudmila" during the G20 Summit in Peterhof near St. Petersburg September 6, 2013. REUTERS/Alexander Demianchuk

Russian President Vladimir Putin put a shawl over the shoulders of China's first lady Peng Liyuan. However, the act of chivalry was apparently not accepted well by China as well as the Western media.

Putin put the shawl over the shoulders of Chinese President Xi Jinping's wife who smiled at the gesture of the Russian president. However, she was quick to slip the shawl off her shoulder and give it to a waiting aide who gave her a jacket to wear. A CCTV anchor described the incident in his voice over that the Russian president had placed "a coat" on Liyuan. The video of the incident was posted on social media. However, CNN reported that there was "little trace" of the incident left on social network.

Chinese authorities apparently censored the video as a potentially damaging material to share. While links of the video was shared on Weibo, the Chinese counterpart of Twitter, as well as on messaging apps like WeChat; the majority of those were found to be broken. Some of the media outlets called the incident as "Coatgate." Jinping was engaged in an animated conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama on his right and probably did not notice what happened on his left where Liyuan was sitting beside Putin.

The Western media, on the other hand, reported the action by the Russian president on a different light. While Russia Today defended Putin's gesture as "innocuous," some of the Western news outlets believed that Putin was "cracking on" or "hitting on" the Chinese first lady. Foreign Policy called Putin "Don Juan-in-chief" who "got a little too friendly" with Liyuan. "'Putin' On the Moves: Vlad Cozies Up to China's First Lady," NBC reported. RT said that Putin had followed the cold-weather etiquette of his country by offering the shawl during the "chilly outdoor fireworks display" in Beijing. According to RT News, it was a "momentary humanizing episode" by Putin. It said that journalists who were "possibly bored with the intricacies" of APEC found the incident to be a boon.

This is, however, not the first time Putin offered a shawl to a lady. He made a similar gesture with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg in 2013. The incident was also interpreted in a similar manner in the West.