End of the Party?

The 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party had begun, and President Hu Jintao was droning his way through his last big speech before stepping down for good. Irritatingly, he raised his voice to a low shout every time he reached the end of a significant sentence. That was when the assembled delegates were expected to applaud, and of course they did. They’d all been issued with copies of his speech telling them precisely where to start clapping.

I’d had as much of this as I could take, so I walked out of the grand theatre in the Great Hall of the People into the equally grand lobby outside. It was about the size of a Buckingham Palace reception room. I sat down on the marble staircase and starting writing my report.

And it was then, with a uniformed security guard watching me tolerantly, that I started to get a flashback. Somewhere, some time, I’d done this before.