A black luxury sedan with official red People’s Armed Police plates had just parked in a spot reserved for someone else. When the garage attendant came over and rather meekly suggested that he move the car, the driver turned on him viciously. ‘Who are you? You’re nothing!’ he bellowed, with such force the concrete walls seemed to reverberate. ‘I will squash you like a bug!’ His father may not have been Li Gang, but the point was still clear. In today’s China, like in Orwell’s Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others.
The man was nothing in the face of state power and privilege.
A billion angry nothings is something to worry about. And Peking sure is worried these days.
Sleep well, comrades.
