BY all accounts, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright enjoyed a successful visit to Beijing last week, with much talk about a new era in bilateral relations.
Beijing sources said President Jiang Zemin was highly impressed with Ms Albright. So impressed that he would much rather have a woman doing the same job in China.
Ms Albright may not know it, but her appointment as America's first female Secretary of State made Mr Jiang think Beijing should do likewise when Qian Qichen recently stepped down as foreign minister.
The figure he had in mind was Wu Yi, one of China's most senior female officials, who spent the last four years as trade minister. But Chinese diplomats refused to contemplate such an appointment. 'The Foreign Ministry totally rejected the idea,' one source said.
This was not because Ms Wu is a woman. Rather it is that mainland diplomats, like their counterparts overseas, jealously guard their privileged status and were aghast at an outsider being brought in as their boss. They also warned that while Ms Wu's confrontational manner worked well in trade talks, it was less suited to delicate diplomatic discussions.
And even President Jiang had to defer to the combined wishes of the nation's diplomats.
Back in Hong Kong, some are still puzzling over how Liberal Party chairman Allen Lee Peng-fei leapt to the defence of the much-criticised Democratic Party candidates who only realised their foreign nationality barred them from standing shortly before nominations closed.
