Party on the beach

SUMMER holidays are always the same for China’s leaders. Every year they decamp from the hot and humid capital and gather in villas by an exclusive stretch of beach in Beidaihe, a resort town of little appeal except to those Chinese who cannot afford glitzier getaways, and to Russians from Siberia who are relieved to be anywhere with sun and sand. Mao Zedong established the Beidaihe-going tradition. He is the only Chinese leader who is known to have felt sufficiently inspired by the place to write a poem about it. It was an anxiety-tinged one, finishing with the words: “The bleak autumn wind whispers and sighs; Nothing has changed, except in the world of man.”President Xi Jinping and his colleagues are now thought to be in Beidaihe, where they have continued Mao’s practice of combining a little relaxation with weighty affairs of state—thrashing out strategy for the year ahead at seaside meetings held in utmost secrecy (see ). How much indeed has changed in China, Mr Xi might reflect, since he came to power nearly three years ago? The economy is on course for its slowest year of growth in a quarter of a century. The stockmarket, having risen to its highest level since the global financial crisis seven years ago, crashed last month. Once hailed as an economic miracle, China is now a source of foreboding: witness the latest falls in global commodity prices.