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The newly chosen leader Xi Jinping, in the centre of the row of sombre men, is introducing his government team in a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. As well as identical suits, they all wear red tiesexcept Wang Qishan, at the far right, who sports an individualistically blue tie. I'm worried about him. But as he is taking on the job of "discipline", he will probably be all right.
Politically incorrect? Anti-China? Come on. This picture is funny. It is bizarre because it so casually refuses to play any game of western-style PR or political spin. You have to hand it to the Communist party of China – it is honest. This photograph reveals a regime with no interest in pretending to be any more democratic than it is. The message it sends out is, don't even think about democracy in China: we are so remote from that path, we don't even contemplate pretending to consider faking it.
Presumably this is political wisdom. The moment Mikhail Gorbachev started to make noises about reform in the USSR people demanded real change, real rights, and the entire Soviet system was finished. One lesson of Russian history is that no reformist path actually exists for a Communist party that has brutally controlled a society for a long time. To soften is to invite revolution. Behind that wan painting of misty mountains, millions of lives long for self-expression. Give them a millimetre and they would take revenge.
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