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Public opinion discovered it later, but Jacques Chirac was also a lover of Asia and its cultures. A passion that has nourished diplomatic relations with China and Japan.
" Understand before judging ". The words of Jacques Chirac pronounced during his official trip to Beijing in 1997 summarize pretty well the ambition of the former French president in diplomatic matters to Asia. In his role as super-representative of French multinationals abroad, the former French president added a sometimes sharp knowledge of the history and art of some countries crossed.
In Japan, it was called "nipponophile". The official media in Beijing nicknamed him the friend of the Chinese people. His passion for late-16th-century Japanese screens or Tang's Chinese poetry is greeted by the local media on each of his official travels.
► See also: Jacques Chirac, the insatiable
Jacques Chirac cultivated his tropism for Asia since a young age. At age 15, he skipped classes to visit the Guimet Museum, the Asian Museum of Arts and Civilizations in Paris. A year later, he goes to Sanskrit. One time, he even plans to convert to Hinduism.
His passion embraces the entire continent, even though China and Japan are at the top of this secret garden. It will total more than fifty trips in the Empire of the rising sun. And he will have his picture at the entrance to the Terracotta Army Museum in Xi'an, the gateway to the great west of China.
In 1978, a year before the opening of the site to tourists and while he is still the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac is indeed the first Western leader to go there. This passion for the statuettes of Emperor Qin will allow him later to pick up the pieces of Franco-Chinese friendship, cooled following the Tiananmen Square's crackdown. In the same way, his love for Japanese culture - and sumo in particular - will help resume diplomatic exchanges with Tokyo after Mururoa's nuclear tests.
► See also: Jacques Chirac, a man of cultures
In 1997, on the occasion of his fourth trip to China, the French president recalls his taste for Asia in general and his defense of dialogue between cultures. " France, which of course has no lessons to give anyone, but who wants to defend human rights everywhere, has opened with China a confident, constructive, demanding dialogue ... "
His choice to travel to Chengdu, the capital of China's Sichuan Province, astonishes the protocol in Beijing. Jacques Chirac wants to visit the house of the poet Du Fu, explains the French part. " Most leaders resonate over ten years, Chirac resonates with humanity, " as was customary to say his friend, former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.