Xi served Putin and Trump Peking duck. Albanese missed out

Xi Jinping has learned that every ingredient placed on a state table is a word in a diplomatic sentence. (AP Photo: Mark Schiefelbein) Link copiedShareShare articlePeking duck appeared on two of three menus. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump received it. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not. Over the past 12 months alone, Beijing has hosted over a dozen foreign leaders for lavish state banquets at the Great Hall of the People, including Trump, Putin, and Albanese. Menus from the Banquet Hall obtained exclusively by the ABC reveal how ducks in Beijing have remained China's most enduring diplomatic tool. This is a complete statement as food is the language of affection and closeness in Chinese culture, and it has always been China's most honest diplomatic gesture. In July 1971, Henry Kissinger arrived in Beijing on a secret mission routed through Pakistan — faking a stomach illness in Islamabad to slip away undetected — and found himself across the table from Premier Zhou Enlai with the entire trajectory of the Cold War hanging between them. The talks had stalled. Then Zhou turned to his guest and suggested having a meal first before the Peking roast duck got cold. He served the duck himself, placed slices on lotus leaf pancakes, poured Moutai — the most premium Chinese spirit that has 53 per cent of alcohol. Premier Zhou Enlai is recorded as having hosted foreign dignitaries with Peking duck on 27 separate occasions. (Reuters: Maxim Shemetov) The deadlock broke somewhere between the first course and the second. Zhou is recorded as having hosted foreign dignitaries with Peking duck on 27 separate occasions. He understood, with a craftsman's precision, that the stomach reaches places the mind has barricaded. "A state banquet is the art of eating, but the craft lies mostly beyond the eating itself," says Wu Deguang, former protocol counsellor from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Beyond their culinary skill, the chefs are required to study the customs and cultures of every nation, and adapt entirely to whoever sits before them." Xi Jinping inherited this understanding institutionally. Between 2008 and 2013, as vice president, he was directly responsible for diplomatic protocol and ceremonial arrangements for visiting foreign leaders. That included the 2008 Olympics, when 125 heads of state arrived simultaneously and the Protocol Department named banquet tables after flowers rather than numbers so that no leader would suffer the indignity of a low ranking. Xi watched, approved, refined. He learned that every ingredient placed on a state table is a word in a diplomatic sentence. The Russian menu included sea cucumber, which is among the most prestigious ingredients in classical Chinese gastronomy. (ABC News: Cordelia Brown) The Russian menu is the most legible of the three. It opens with duck consomme with freshwater clams — a northern refinement, technically demanding — moves through Peking duck and then to braised sea cucumber with spring onion. Sea cucumber is among the most prestigious ingredients in classical Chinese gastronomy, historically reserved for the highest register of hospitality. Abalone sauce followed on seasonal vegetables. Then Moutai, Guizhou, China. As the legendary "liquid currency" of Chinese power, Moutai transitioned from a battlefield disinfectant for revolutionary soldiers into the ultimate tool for elite statecraft. This fiery spirit serves as China's premier diplomatic icebreaker, while simultaneously acting as a high-stakes barometer for domestic political influence and corruption. The Russian menu opened with duck consommé with freshwater clams. (Reuters: Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov) Moutai has not often appeared on a state banquet table for a Western-adjacent leader since Nixon sat across from Zhou Enlai in 1972. That meal — shark's fin, coconut steamed chicken, Moutai toasts, Nixon practising using chopsticks for a month before arriving — was the most consequential dinner of the Cold War. Serving Moutai to Putin today is a direct historical citation of close ties and the weight of that moment. The wine selection amplifies the statement too. Putin received Great Wall's Terroir series from Ningxia — China's finest wine region, internationally recognised and deliberately chosen — rather than the Hebei standard served to Trump and Albanese. Three beverages in total, against two for other guests. Eleven courses against 10. The extra dish — a mung bean cake, quiet and almost self-effacing between the vanilla mousse and the fruit — changes the meaning of the entire menu. In a format where every element is precisely designed, one additional course is an acknowledgement. It is a structural alignment to some extent, composed in the language Zhou Enlai perfected at the table where the modern world order was quietly negotiated over cooling duck. Trump's menu included golden broth lobster, crispy beef and delicate pan-

Xi served Putin and Trump Peking duck. Albanese missed out

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