The Glorious 15th of October: The 17th Party Congress Opens!

Today marks the start of the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the five-yearly affair at which the Party's top cadres get together and, well, mostly approve what they are told to approve. As China President and not coincidentally the CPC's Secretary General Hu Jintao put it in his speech opening the Congress this morning: "All Party members must firmly uphold the centralized and unified leadership of the Party, conscientiously abide by the Party's discipline, always be in agreement with the Central Committee and resolutely safeguard its authority to ensure its resolutions and decisions are carried out effectively." There was a good deal of other stuff in the speech about increasing "intra-party" democracy, but for me, that was the real money graf. As I have remarked before, there is a good deal of talk before every Congress about increasing democracy but the reality is you do what the big boys say or suffer the consequences.

We'll have more on the Congress later, of course. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of photos. There are over a thousand journalists covering this affair, as you can see making for crowded conditions in the conference hall.

It'll be no surprise to anyone familiar with these affairs that despite all the trappings of being a media friendly event-- press room, internet facilities, organized tours and plenty of free tea-- actual reporting--that is talking to delegates for example-- is tightly circumscribed. This leads journalists to hunt about desperately for anything that might qualify as news or color to add to their stories and thus to endless pictures of ancient delegates being wheeled into the hall, People's Liberation Army troops marching around Tiananmen, red flags rippling in the brisk Autumn breeze etc etc. There was even someone who insisted on photographing me as I left the Great Hall of the People, though god knows why. Oddly, the main attraction in the square was the Beijing Police SWAT truck, which had a stream of people having their pictures shot in front of it. Seem as though they've watched one too many TV cop shows.