Today, Chinese representatives presented a letter of “strong demarche” to the US Ambassador to China concerning arms sales to Taiwan; according to the article this equates to a “strong protest”. Won’t get into that fray, but just wondered is there’s standardized language of diplo-babble that diplomats use to convey messages to others in the business. “Demarche” appears French to me; what do they have to do with diplomacy? Can we coin our own “diplomatic” phrases?
Diplomacy, like religion, is based much on the concept of “Well, we’ve always done it that way.”
Protocol is a big deal. Only officials of a certain rank can receive certain documents from their corresponding diplomat in the other country.
When the U.S. was threatening military action in Kuwait to get Iraq out, the U.S. and Iraq met in a neutral place. According to protocol, each country’s representatives entered from opposite sides of the conference room at the same time. Sec. of State Baker handed his Iraqi counterpart the final offer from the U.S. The man read it, but he refused to take it (and he might not even have touched it). It was all very formal and official and proper.
Then everybody starting shooting at each other.
As I understand it, at the time basic diplomatic concepts were being developed french was the primary language of diplomacy and science. Why would you make up a new name for a concept that already has a reasonable name in standard usage? Why aren’t you whining that automobile is french?