Chapter 49: Chapter 49

The world was two years into the crisis. In London, as 2010 dawned, Gordon

Brown’s day of reckoning approached. It was election year and Brown

commenced with a pitifully amusing announcement to the press, he was

ready ‘to fight for Britain’. The Prime Minister was forced to admit he would be

the underdog in the forthcoming elections, an evidence to all but the most staunch

of Labour supporters.

Britain would soon have a new government, but with the clouds gathering over

the EU, optimism was not on the cards as Greek credit ratings fell for the first time

in a decade to BBB+. Eyes were nervously turning towards Spain and Ireland as

their economic prospects darkened. As for Iceland, its voters had finally woken up;

nearly a quarter of them signed a petition asking their president to veto a bill to

repay three and a half billion pounds to the British government. The payment was

to compensate two hundred thousand brainless British savers who lost their money

when the Icelandic online bank, Icesave, collapsed.

But disasters were however relative. On January 12, 2010, Haiti was hit by one of

the world’s worst quakes in many decades, provoking a quarter of a million deaths.

The country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, was practically destroyed and the lives of

millions of Haitians, already amongst the world’s poorest, took a turn for the

worse.

Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain in spite of their economic woes were rich

compared to Haiti and could count on the help of their partners in the EU and by

the IMF. But the risk of contagion and multiple defaults due to excessive

government deficits was real and fears for the euro were already being voiced.

As opposed to a Keynesian approach, austerity was becoming the fashion with

the very same politicians; those had so recently spent as though there were no

tomorrows, vociferously promising all round budget cuts.

Tony Blair resurfaced to testify before the Chilcot committee, adopting an almost

evangelical tone as he defended his war in Iraq. ‘It had made the world a safer

place,’ he said, and as for Saddam Hussein: ‘he was monster and I believe he

threatened not just the region but the world.’

Blair’s decade, one which entangled Britain in one of the most morally

controversial foreign policy decisions in modern times, had ended in economic

disaster. On leaving the hearing it was no surprise the now discredited former

leader was jeered by the public.

Far from the issues facing Britain, Tom Barton was fascinated by the tribulations

of high ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party. It was a contradiction

in terms that many of the Communist elite were prominent members of the China’s

nouveaux riche. But when yet another scandal hit the web, with death of the

playboy son of a high-ranking government official, it bode ill for the credibility of

T

the country’s leaders as they jostled for leadership of the all-powerful Politburo.

Li Xiaolong, son of a leading Politburo figure, whom Barton had been introduced

to on his visit to Beijing, had killed himself at the wheel of a red Ferrari Spider that

had spun out of control in the early hours of the morning during the Autumn

Festival holiday in Beijing.

In spite of the efforts by the police stage a cover-up, news leaked on the web

informed the public Xiaolong had been killed instantly in the crash, which was not

the case for his female passenger, who was seriously injured. Lurid details

described the driver and his passenger as being naked at the moment of the crash,

and, according to hospital reports, both had high levels of alcohol and cocaine in

their blood.

All English language references to the accident were quickly removed by censors

from online Blogs. However, news of the scandal soon resurfaced in Hong Kong

and circulated freely on Chinese language Internet sites to the delight of scandal

hungry surfers. Police, in a farcical effort to cover-up the scandal, even tried to

convince Xiaolong’s room-mate at Peking University, he had left to pursue post

graduate studies elsewhere.

High level corruption in China was nothing new, but in the past it had been

relatively well hidden from the public view. But with the democratization of

Internet, the wild behaviour of the privileged offspring of top China’s officials

revealed the extravagant lives of those at the top. The question of how the sons and

daughters of top officials attended high fee paying universities in Britain and the

US, when their parents earned a few thousand dollars a year in their government

jobs, could have puzzled Westerners, but in China few eyebrows were raised. That

Xiaolong drove a Ferrari costing hundreds of thousands of dollars would have

certainly shocked his revolutionary grandparents, real Communists, but not

China’s new generation whose reaction was more often a knowing snigger.

Murder, skulduggery and corruption had become rampant at all levels of the

Communist Party, in government ministries and state-run enterprises. The

flaunting of privileges had become part of daily life in China. The trappings of

power and corruption in the form of high priced luxury cars and extravagant

watches were openly displayed. So called princelings and their offspring were

openly accused of abusing their power and amassing fortunes through graft

and corruption.

‘Westerners, who cosy up to powerful Chinese politicians are wed to their rise or

fall,’ John Francis warned Kennedy. A piece of information which would not

however prevent Pat from making questionable friends, as he always seemed to do.

‘What about censorship?’

‘If you’re asking does press and media censorship exist in China, the answer is

yes!’

Kennedy was pleased; at least he had got that right.

‘But, you should remember that censorship exists almost everywhere. Take the

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UK, here you have your libel laws with court-imposed gags that prevent the media

from publishing anything contrary to the interests of for example royalty and the

top elite. Then there are restraints fixed by the establishment through what we

usually call politically correct attitudes, for example those relating to religion or

what may be construed as racist. On the other hand it’s always open season for

sniping at politicians and celebrities, providing libel laws are respected and

politically correct attitudes are observed.’

‘So what about the political class in China?’

‘The press is controlled by the state, so anything political is treated with kid

gloves, on the other hand Internet poses a different kind of problem. English

language sites are strictly controlled, but strange as it may seem Chinese language

sites are freer, perhaps because many blogs have such a minute audience, though

when there is a buzz rumours spread across the web like wildfire.’

‘Political rumours?’

‘Yes, one blog recently received over three hundred thousand comments on one

of its politically related stories.’

‘Sounds free to me.’

‘Perhaps, but scandals rarely get aired by the media, though things seem to be

changing. Inequalities are now visible to all, as is corruption. There are more and

more angry clashes with authorities on a wide range of issues: the expropriation of

land, pollution, injustice and so on.’

‘So what’s this I’ve heard about a Ferrari?’

‘You mean the accident in Beijing?’

Kennedy shrugged; he had no idea where the accident had taken place.

‘It was the son of a prominent member of the politburo.’

‘Politburo?’

‘It’s like the cabinet in the UK, the government core if you like.’