clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

17 questions about this bizarre video of Putin maybe flirting with China's first lady

Russian President Vladimir Putin lent his coat to China's first lady during dinner, and it is apparently a scandal, reports Foreign Policy. Chinese state media censors have apparently scrubbed all references to Putin's quasi-flirtatious interaction with Xi Xinping's wife.

Putin was seated next to Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan during a dinner at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing on November 10th, which President Obama also attended. This video captures him speaking to her briefly, then producing a tan coat from under his table and placing it around her shoulders. The first lady wore it for a moment, then handed it off to an attendant. The action starts at 0:35, toward the right end of the table:

Having viewed the video, I agree that it raises a number of important questions. For instance:

  1. Why did Putin have a coat hidden under the table?
  2. Where exactly was the coat?
  3. No but seriously does he have a secret Bond villain compartment under there?
  4. Whoa, really? What else does he keep in there?
  5. Doesn't the first lady agree that it's a little weird to borrow a coat from someone at dinner and then hand it off to some rando five seconds later?
  6. Where did the aforementioned rando take the coat?
  7. Didn't she know that it was Putin's coat?
  8. Okay but then why didn't she just hand it back to him?
  9. Is Putin sad that he did not get his coat back?
  10. Was it a special coat that he loved?
  11. Was it hard for Putin to continue with dinner knowing that his beloved secret-compartment coat had been cruelly stolen from him?
  12. Has that issue been raised through formal diplomatic channels?
  13. Has anyone considered that perhaps the real scandal here is that dinner was being held in a room so cold that multiple coats became involved before the first course had even been served?
  14. A man was in charge of the thermostat, wasn't he?
  15. Is he aware of the scientific research showing that women's extremities get cold more easily than men's, thus making women more likely to become uncomfortable in chilly rooms?
  16. Did he not even care?
  17. Have there been any attempts to resolve the coat dispute via back-channel communications with Kuzya the tiger?

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for Vox Recommends

Get curated picks of the best Vox journalism to read, watch, and listen to every week, from our editors.