As one of the embassy drivers I met in Beijing saw it, ferrying diplomats to meetings was secondary to his responsibility of lecturing us on China’s true place in the world. A conversational bully, to Mr Wang listening was a sign of weakness. Crossing Tiananmen with its vast picture of Chairman Mao, I interrupted his flow to ask his opinion of the Great Helmsman.
‘Great man. He made China great.’
‘But,’ I asked, ‘what about the fact that he caused the avoidable deaths of a minimum of 36 million Chinese, the figure reached by a Chinese Communist party (CCP) member and official news agency journalist after years of research?’
‘No, it was not so many.’
We shall see what action the IOC takes against the Chinese cyclists. Don’t hold your breath: you risk auto-asphyxiation
Eventually, after a negotiation in which I disingenuously suggested 10 million as the total, he generously conceded 15 million as reasonable.
‘So what do you think of a man who needlessly caused the death of 15 million Chinese people?’
‘Well… er, he was still a great man.
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