Life after high office: Obama gives speeches, while retired Chinese leaders stay out of the limelight

Jiang Xun reflects on the Chinese proposal to review the pension and benefits for retired state leaders, as he watches the former US president take on lucrative speaking engagements and maintain an active public life

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Former US president Barack Obama waves as he arrives to speak at the North American Climate Summit, in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:24am, 15 Dec 2017Updated: 5:37pm, 15 Dec 2017

Last month, when former US president Barack Obama gave a speech at a business conference in Shanghai, I was in the audience. There, Obama spoke to more than 2,500 representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises, both at home and abroad. In his first post-presidency speech in China, which was also his first in Shanghai in eight years, “cooperation” was a key word.

I was also there when Obama spoke in Shanghai eight years ago, on his first visit to China. It was in the middle of November 2009, and he addressed some 300 young people in a 15-minute speech.

That speech was delivered as part of a political mission, but the recent one was purely commercial in nature. The conference organisers reportedly paid Obama a few million yuan for the 20-minute speech, which was followed by a question-and-answer session that lasted 30 minutes.

Obama was 47 in 2008 when he got elected president of the United States by preaching the inspiring messages of hope and change. The inaugural address of the first black president in US history drew applause from the rest of the world.

Today, bearing the aura of a former US president, his rhetorical skills have only got better. All he needs to do, it seems, is pick up a microphone and the words flow. He is the picture of a charismatic leader. In a speech of 10 to 20 minutes, he never looks at the script, but gets the body language, the pace of his speech, and the intonation of his voice just right.

It is said that an excellent speech has five qualities: expressive, well structured, inspiring, persuasive and highly performative. Obama scores top marks in all five areas.