heavy-handed 復習

　アメリカと中国の関係は今後どうなっていくのでしょうか。

Can U.S.-China relations be saved?

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting on Saturday afternoon, Chinese diplomats arrived unexpectedly at the Foreign Ministry of host Papua New Guinea. Angry at Papua New Guinea’s support for American wording in the meeting’s final communique, they only left after police were called, Australian and other media reported.

Chinese officials denied the reports, saying suggestions they had tried to bully officials from the smaller nations were “simply untrue.” But the reported face-off dramatically underscored how a gathering that had hoped to ease tensions between Beijing and Washington’s allies in the region looks to have inflamed them instead. Two weeks before a landmark meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 in Argentina — and just days after Trump said a list of 140 trade concessions offered by Beijing was “not acceptable to me yet,” the world’s two largest economies are now more at loggerheads than ever.

中略

Instead, its heavy-handed tactics — including banning non-Chinese journalists from Xi’s meeting with regional leaders — seems to have backfired. China found itself at odds with almost all the other nations at APEC, while U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s speech made it clearer than ever that Washington now intends to oppose and offer its own alternatives to China’s landmark Belt and Road initiative, which promotes expanding ties between Asia, Africa and Europe, including billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005361465

heavy-handed /hɛ́vihæ̀ndɪd/ を取り上げます。直訳で考えると、手が重そうな感じが想像できますが、どのような意味をもつのでしょうか。『ライトハウス英和辞典』（第5版　研究社）で調べると「思いやりのない、高圧的な」とありました。相手と握手をするのを拒む様子から手が重く見えるのではないかと思いました。

　LDOCEには “taking too much action or extreme action, especially without thinking about other people’s feelings” と定義されています。人のことを考えず、身勝手な行動ばかりとる様子が伺えます。

　Online Etymology Dictionaryによると “originally “weary” or “clumsy”” とあるように、もとは「疲れている、不器用な」という意味で、そこから後に「高圧的な」という意味を表すようになったことがわかりました。（aqua）

heavy-hand #3 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
heavy-handed #2 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から