It's much about emotions, hurt feelings and such. The stark difference between the western and eastern leaders is their professionalism in expression and their willingness to become good diplomats - in general, not in particular, I shall say.
you also need to talk to those who do not have such goal. Instead of learning from a skilled dialogue partner, one must accept to lower the standard, and there is a certain need to manipulate. A stupid opponent has to be unfortunately manipulated, whereas a bright one has to be convinced. Both ways, it's a test of the diplomatic skills of a statesman.
However, this must be preceded by wanting to have created the understanding of the one who appears more stupid. This may take years.
The thing is that every time you constantly have to deal with less capable challengers, there is the danger that it chips away at your own integrity and sovereignty and instead of congratulating the better one at the end of the challenge and making friends with the result as the inferior one, there is the following: The smarter one has to flatter the dumber one so that the latter doesn't lose face.
Ever tried that and completed such thing without dishonoring yourself?
This is a very delicate matter in politics, both internally and externally.
if it can be recognised that the expression of leaders shows an ability to change perspective.
Where a politician, as a representative of his nation, lets his counterpart (colleague from another nation) see that he understands his position. And to mean it.
A statesman needs to practise the ability to speak and think diplomatically in order to be able to express understanding of the situation of a foreign nation, in particular a hostile one. And feel it.
He can only do this if he has advisors and opponents in his own ranks who sharply criticise and challenge him. Without having been challenged in many ways beforehand - and maybe not always in the open - according to the rules of diplomatic debate and having both lost and won in the process, you are not a suitable statesman.
Secondly, it is important for the public to see a head of state - or other representatives - who admit their own mistakes and neither overemphasise nor underplay them.
and has to overcome language barriers. The English-speaking international audience consumes too little foreign politics and therefore I am not aware of the extent to which criticism is public (in China or Russia, for example) or is rather handled in such a way that critical debates are not televised in general, although they may take place.
How little the West really understands about other cultures is not something you can just find out or say. Strangely enough, westerners are very good at showing themselves hostile.
One can assume that there is much less understanding of a foreign culture, especially when everything is expressed in Western habits. Labelling and portraying heads of state as dictators for the sole reason that they have long terms in office need not be wise or accurate. Length of tenure can be both an indicator of stability or a sign of oppression.
There have been governments that have stayed in office simply because they forced it on the people and there are those that are because the people support it.
Now, there is no easy way to find out or even claim that the people of a foreign nation, for example, reject or welcome their head of state and their government unless you live there yourself, speak the language, adopt the customs and habits yourself for a relevant period of time and get a good feel for the atmosphere.
As a normal citizen who is neither one (emotionally stable) nor the other (living in a foreign country for a few years), one should rather keep quiet than make comments about other countries in such a way that "democracy should be brought there".
With such statements you rather out yourself as unintelligent.
the heads of state are mutually dependent. It may very well be that the incompetence of one brings the other so low in his own standard of quality that it is to the detriment of all who are governed.
The best statesman is the one who succeeds in overcoming the low standard of the other. And even creates a deep insight into him. Such as that punishments undertaken from the one, will not only hurt the opponent but also the instigator himself.
If the whole of the world falls into a depressing or cynical belief, that such statesmen do not exist, that such diplomacy and relationship is just a dream, this human world may indeed fall apart and worse.
Though I do not think so.
