To many Americans, especially of the neo conservative persuasion, Dutch behavior might confirm all their suspicions about perfidious Europeans, addicted to material comforts, while remaining childishly dependent on US military protection. When the going gets tough, they argue, the Europeans bow out.

But, in the Chinese media s puerile narrative, the move exposes Li as ungrateful and unpatriotic. He is abandoning China which, it is claimed, enabled him to rise from extreme poverty to become one of the world s wealthiest men when the country needs him most.