Wen Jiabao, on a three-day trip to Great Britain, found himself on the receiving end of a shoe-flinging by a student protester at Cambridge University Monday morning. As Wen was delivering a speech on Sino-British friendship in the global economy, a student stood up, blew a whistle and began shouting at Wen. “How can this university prostitute itself with this dictator here, how can you listen… to him unchallenged,” the student yelled. He repeatedly shouted “dictator” as Wen stood at the podium, looking somewhat frightened. The protester then removed his shoe and threw it at Wen, missing wide left, at which point the crowd turned on the protester and yelled “shame on you” as only Brits could. Interestingly, the state-run Chinese media, who gleefully and abundantly covered the infamous George Bush shoe incident in December, noticeably omitted any descriptions in newspapers or broadcasts of Monday’s embarrassing episode. According to an AP story late Monday night:

The official Xinhua News Agency issued a story saying that Britain apologized for an incident and that China had “expressed its strong feelings against the occurrence of the incident.” However, it did not say what the incident was.

China’s state-run CCTV network reported Foreign Ministry comments, which acknowledged a “disturbance” during the speech, but made no mention a shoe had been thrown at Wen.

In the live broadcast of the speech on CCTV’s Web site, the camera remains fixed on Wen, not showing the shoe or the protester, although his remarks and the sound of the shoe hitting the stage can be heard. Wen pauses, glances sideways as the shoe hits the stage, and then continues his speech.

After the protester was removed from the auditorium, Wen looked at the crowd and delivered the cheese. “Teachers and students,” he said, “this kind of dirty trick cannot stop the friendship between the Chinese and the British people.”

Here’s the best video I could find:

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