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.
时隔四分之一个世纪，这仍是一张散发着历史回声、臭名昭著的表现欧洲人傲慢的图片。时任国际货币基金组织(IMF)法国籍总裁米歇尔•康德苏(Michel Camdessus)居高临下地站在印尼总统苏哈托(Suharto)身旁，傲慢地交叉双臂，而后者垂着头，签署一份屈辱的、非常过分的条件清单，以交换1998年亚洲金融危机期间一笔紧急贷款。