re: #289 freetoken

Meanwhile… back in Copenhagen, the Chinese delegate successfully derailed the detailed text negotiations (by the policy wonks, not to be confused with the political statements going on by the leaders in the next room) by speaking in Chinese, but with no interpreter present (and the rep speaks English fairly well, as he has spoken in English before during this conference) they had to stop. Since it is a UN meeting, translation is part of the deal, so the meeting had to break until the translators showed up. That was a couple of hours ago… they’ve yet to reconvene.

No doubt there is more to it, but this was a very convenient ploy.

Huh. I wonder if anyone was bold enough to try to cut them off and ask them to speak in English, or whether it served enough purposes to let them continue with no protests. Very interesting.