Although Sihanouk was not the most intelligent, he had received a taste of civilised refinement and held a deep admiration for both French and Khmer traditional culture. His queen, Monique (also known as Monineath), of French and Italian descent, was elegant and dignified in both appearance and manner. In the 1970s, she accompanied her exiled husband on multiple visits to Beijing. When mainland Chinese watched the documentaries, they saw a Cambodian queen — albeit a deposed one — that exuded the aura of Audrey Hepburn. Then, in contrast, they looked at their own “national mother”, Jiang Qing, dressed in her masculine Maoist uniform, and felt an unspoken sense that something…