US, China and the indelicate art of insults

New tyranny: At the Asean forum earlier this month, Pompeo underlined US ‘commitment to speak out in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s escalating aggression and threats to sovereign nations’. — AP

THERE’S this memorable anecdote in Mario Puzo’s crime classic, The Godfather, where the mafia don from New York sends his henchman to reason with a Hollywood mogul who is standing in the way of his godson getting a film role perfect for him in every way, except that he has alienated the studio big shot who now hates his guts.

Where words fail, more potent nudges are sometimes needed – in this case, a horse’s head placed in the studio chief’s bedroom while he is asleep, blood and reedy tendons included, did the trick. It persuaded the man that the favour requested, and declined, is serious business. And thus he yields, shouting invectives and threats at the actor and his Italian origins, the consigliere who had reached out to him with the initial contact on behalf of his boss, and the mafia.