Six Cities in China

As a holiday destination, China has never been high on my list of travel priorities, but after a whistle-stop, four-week tour of six cities, I’ve returned a reluctant Sinophile, boggled and bemused by everything I saw in this land of communist rule.

Communist? Well there, immediately, is one of China’s perplexing contradictions, beautifully illustrated by the many folkloric tales that Chinese locals love to share with visitors from abroad.

One such anecdote, gleefully recounted by one of many guides I met along my travels, describes how former US president George W. Bush, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s current leader, Hu Jintao, were driving together in a car before reaching a T-junction. The driver turned to the leaders and asked them in which direction to go and Bush Jnr (or “little Bush”, as our Chinese guide described him) said, “Turn right.” Putin, the Russian leader, said, “Right.” The driver then asked Hu which way to turn and he replied: “Make a signal to turn left, but turn right.”

The joke is simply this: in China, the leadership professes to be communist, but the truth is it’s capitalist. And you’d better believe it. From 1949, Chairman Mao presided over this vast land with a communist vision of dominance, but since his demise in the mid-’70s, and especially in the past decade, the country’s ruling junta has turned its eye to the free market.

Everywhere you visit, the power and wealth of the world’s fastest-growing economy is potently palpable; its 1.3 billion people may not be individually wealthy, but the collective fiscal might of China is everywhere to see.