This is not ALL the Chinese people, even though it looks like about 1.6 billion of them, this is just the Chinese ‘congress’. An event so rare it occurs once every 5 years. I mean, the World Cup happens every 4 years, so this gathering is even much more specialer than that. The picture is just the party officials, delegates and the top guys. What would be called ‘government’ in a democratic country, but China is no such thing, perish the thought, so its more called ‘a collective suck-up’ or a ‘bunch’a yes-men’ (if I knew the Chinese for ‘yes’ I’d have said so, but as you can’t eat ‘yes’ I’ve never had cause to learn it). They could also be known as The Listeners. Because they listen to what Xi Jinping has to say without being allowed to offer comment, certainly not argument and any dissent from YES SIR!!!! carries a death penalty. This is in fact a photo of the world’s largest Un-Government. The New Communism. This lot probably share 90% of the nation’s wealth whilst the other 1,599,500 scrabble around eating corn-husks. Except the Uyghurs, of course, who get shipped out, murdered or brainwashed into slavery.

Because its all about Xi. There is nothing to discuss once his words are uttered. And the first words he chose to utter to this silent crowd were words of strength and, some would say, aggression. Like Putin, Tyrant Xi likes to threaten and tell the world how tough and ruthless he is. So if you fuck about with Taiwan, he will nuke you. If you interfere with his plan of human rights abuses, he will attack your nation, bind its collective feet and destroy you. And he’ll know what you’re thinking because Alexa and 5G will tell him. He has a hot-line from my kitchen (where all such plans are formulated, everyone knows that) to Beijing.

So when Xi announces that ‘he’ll probably stay as party chairman for another 5 years, if not for life’, who is going to question it? China is an autocracy, and he is that autocrat. He who controls the army is king.

Whereas life in a democracy is so much nicer. We have a Prime Minister running the country who would struggle to run a car boot sale in her own driveway. We have a chancellor who makes all the decisions, but nobody voted him as the boss. And we have a proper king. With a crown and a Queen and everything. But no-one’s ever listened to him and won’t start now.

So I may move to China, short-term, just til the pound rises in value.

Happy Monday

A xxxx