A quarter of a century later it remains a resonant and notorious image of European arrogance. Michel Camdessus, then the French managing director of the IMF, stands over Suharto with arms imperiously folded as the Indonesian president, head bowed, signs a humiliating and wildly excessive list of conditions in return for an emergency loan during the Asian financial crisis in 1998. Now Indonesian accusations of oppression by Europeans are being aired again, this time over Brussels’ demands that palm oil growers prove that their exports to the EU do not cause deforestation. Indonesia’s economy minister has accused the EU of “regulatory imperialism”; the Indonesian foreign ministry’s videoed annual address last year contained an image of a jackboot marked with the EU logo stamping on a palm oil plantation.
時隔四分之一個世紀，這仍是一張散發著歷史回聲、臭名昭著的表現歐洲人傲慢的圖片。時任國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)法國籍總裁蜜雪兒•康德蘇(Michel Camdessus)居高臨下地站在印尼總統蘇哈托(Suharto)身旁，傲慢地交叉雙臂，而後者垂著頭，簽署一份屈辱的、非常過分的條件清單，以交換1998年亞洲金融危機期間一筆緊急貸款。