As hundreds of thousands of Filipinos struggled to find food, water, shelter and the bodies of loved ones in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, China quickly dipped into its world-leading $3.7 trillion of currency reserves and came up with ... all of $100,000.
That was Beijing's first miserly offer of aid to the storm-tossed Philippines. By Thursday, an international outcry over China's stinginess shamed it into upping its pledge to a modest $1.6 million worth of relief materials such as tents and blankets. But the damage was already done.
"It's very hard to call for de-Americanization and then leave your wallet at home when there's a human disaster the scale of the typhoon in the Philippines," says Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group in New York. "Yes, China is a poor country. Yes, they have troubled relations with the Philippines. But this sits badly with anyone thinking about China's rise in the region." If he were advising President Xi Jinping, Bremmer says, "I'd push for major humanitarian aid to the Philippines."