Yesterday was the opening of the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, the 19th edition of the most important quinquennial political meeting in China.
As you can read on wikipedia ‘The National Congress is theoretically the highest body within the Communist Party of China, but in practice important decisions are made before the meeting’.
Yet, this year excitement is in the air: the ones who celebrate the man and the actions of core leader President Xi Jinping and the ‘rejuvenation of China’ and the ones who foresee a rising dictator, further crackdowns on civil society and the ‘yellow peril’ geared up for imperialistic ambitions.
We belong to the journalist tribe, so we had to wake up at 5 am, queue up to get through security and enter the Great Hall of the People. 3 hours of speech about the great achievement of the past five years and the bright future ahead, and one hour to come up with some punchy lines to wrap up stuff we’ve mostly heard over and over in the past few years.
The Party has its own rubber stamp ritual and so do we. If you are a serious journalist, you have to show up at the Congress. Although I personally don’t fancy these big formal meetings as I don’t get excited about press conferences, I usually get my share of glory by posting pictures of the Congress on WeChat. My Chinese contacts love that - ‘how cool, he is at the Congress! he must be an accomplished journalist!’ - and I indulge in a moment of empty vanity.
Anyway, what is really worth sharing is two of the most widely circulating posts during the opening day.
The first is an online App developed by Tencent and named ‘Applauds for Xi’.
It’s actually a mobile game where you listen to meaningful ideological bites of President Xi’s speech and then you frenzily tap on your phone to applaud for Xi’s wise words and try to break the record of clapping speed. I imagine the guys at Tencent (one of the most successful high-tech mega group and top company in China) when they got a call from some Party guy, telling them: “You guys spend all day posting big boobs online and filling games with crappy violent content, do something for your country for once”. “Consider it done!”
And here you go with hours of entertainment (try it on your mobile):
http://news.qq.com/zt2017/applaud/index.htm?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0
You might be asking yourself: ‘So that’s it? You sum up the eventful 19th Congress and Xi’s enlightening speech with an online game???’.
No way is my answer and, in fact, here comes the second widely shared post, and I warn you, this is stuff for true China freaks.
Someone - I guess some enslaved Ph.d. student with a gift for self-flagellation - made an incredibly detailed visual map of all the contents touched by Xi Jinping’s speech, from the Chinese dream to Internet, military development, deepening of the reform, economy, education system and a lot more.
Now if you are a China expert and someone asks you 'So, what was the President's speech about?' you can politely hand him/her this chart and reply 'Do you really want me to go through all this?'
Here you find the original file...
…and here’s my sleepy head in the Great Hall of People. Applauses, please!
