Beijing vs Pooh

A new film featuring Winnie The Pooh, the popular character from AA Milne’s classic children’s books, has apparently been banned in China.

The ban might seem puzzling, because nothing could surely be further from political controversy than these gentle stories about Christopher Robin and his friends.

However, the answer might lie in a photograph taken back in 2013 of a tall, slim President Obama walking next to a shorter, chubbier President Xi Jinping. Some imaginative people began posting this photograph next to a startlingly similar, and very amusing, image of rotund Winnie The Pooh walking next to his taller, slimline companion Tigger. This started a trend, to the point where Winnie may have become an unlikely, subversive symbol of mockery and dissent in China, and thus now seems to be persona non grata.

Here in Thailand there was a recent announcement of a very detailed list of requirements, some of them ridiculous, which needed to be followed by press photographers trying to capture an image of the prime minister, who says he didn’t know about them, or maybe he did. Anyway, he made it clear he didn’t object to the photographers bowing or making some other gesture of respect before and after snapping away.

That, of course, is what defines dictators — extreme sensitivity to perceived loss of dignity, to criticism, or to “mickey-taking” of any sort. Is it because they believe their power entitles them to absolute loyalty and deference, or are they aware that, in reality, their power hangs by a thread, that enemies and power-seeking opportunists lurk behind every door, waiting to pounce, leaving them feeling insecure and vulnerable?

Or do they fear that the fawning masses, officially herded together to roar their adulation, could so easily turn into a baying mob, seeking their destruction? Poor fellows, it must be a tough life. No wonder they get a bit tetchy now and again. ROBIN GRANT