Argentinean president mocks Chinese accent on Twitter

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-02-07

Chinese president Xi Jinping and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. (Photo/CNS)

Argentinean president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner made fun of Chinese people, who often struggle to differentiate the "r" and "l" sounds in Spanish, on Twitter on Wednesday during her four-day visit to China to sign multiple political, economic and military cooperative deals, reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.

Fernandez replaced the "r"s in "arroz," the Spanish word for rice, "La Campora," the Argentinean political youth organization that supports Fernandez de Kirchner's government and "petroleo," the Spanish word for petroleum, with "l" in her tweet. Her tweet read, "More than 1,000 participants at the event. Are they all from La Campora and in it only for the rice and the petroleum?"

She pinned the tweet to the top of her account, but later apologized after being blasted as a racist, stating that there are so many ridiculous things in the world that can only be resolved with humor. The Chinese government has not responded to her tweet.

Her Twitter account has been the most popular social networking account among Latin American national leaders as she often tweets pictures and witty remarks.

She led around 100 Argentinean business people on a visit to China from Feb. 3-6. The two countries inked deals to enhance cooperation on politics, economics, trade, finance, electricity plants and aerospace. Argentina also acquired Chinese military weapons, including five Chinese P18 corvettes.