immanence

As the world breathes a sigh of relief that this meeting happened at all, ecocritics can wonder about the semiotics of the image framing Chairman Xi Jinping’s meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Relief :

• 1. a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress.
• 2. financial or practical assistance given to those in special need or difficulty.
• 3. a person or group of people replacing others who have been on duty.
• 4. the state of being clearly visible or obvious due to being accentuated; a method of moulding, carving, or stamping in which the design stands out from the surface, to a greater (high relief) or lesser (low relief) extent; a piece of sculpture in relief; a representation of relief given by an arrangement of line or colour or shading;
• GEOGRAPHY: difference in height from the surrounding terrain. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Is this: China as a force of nature? Xi backed by the power of the Earth itself? Blinken representing the upstart (phallic) power (on the left) arriving at the (immovable) granddaddy of all things under heaven?

There are at least 33 other halls in the Great Hall of the People that they could have met in (and many more images that they could have met in front of).

Welcome to China.