The Chinese love playing games. Mahjong is obviously very popular, as well as board and dice games. And who could forget the classic game of hide-and-seek? The absolute favorite of Chinese officials however has to be ‘tit for tat.’ How else can we explain the punishing of the Melbourne International Film Festival for showing a documentary about exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, the threatening of India for not feeling comfy with *cough* quality Chinese dairy and the cancelling of an entire summit with the EU last year because -ah putain!- Sarkozy decided to meet the Dalai Lama before. Although we do acknowledge the latter is usually full of shit.

The latest example was found yesterday, as China chose to reject a Japanese navy call because the dirty Japs hosted the exiled Uighur leader last month. If the Middle Kingdom is about to take on the role of world cop as our conservative columnist and Filipino basher Chip Tsao thinks it should, how about acting a bit more mature when the world doesn’t bend over every time you say 祖国! We know you hold so much U.S. debt you can bankrupt half the world in a second, your military power is becoming impressive, having the largest consumer market is simply a matter of time and we can even understand your argument for heavy pollution as nobody was bitching at the West while it was industrializing.

But for f*ck sakes, live up to the role of world leader and stop being such a whiny annoying brat. As Spidy’s uncle Ben once said: “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Sigh.. If only Hollywood could inspire Chinese officials as it did with this boy from Sichuan province.