RHP (RANK HATH PRIVILEGE): THE CHINESE RULING ELITE & THEIR CARS

THE ELITE FLEET

CARS AWAITING THEIR OFFICIALS

IN THE INTERIOR COURTYARD OF

THE GREAT HALL OF THE PEOPLE

DURING THE 17th CONGRESS OF

THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

BEIJING, OCTOBER 2007

The Audi A6 is identified as the "semiofficial car of the Chinese Communist Party" by Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times this week (here). Above is a flock of Audis waiting for delegates to the 17th Congress of the CC to be disgorged from the Great Hall of the People in October 2007. Cars for the privileged in the People's Republic of China are not new, and popular anger against the abuses of this system has been noted before, for example, in a 2006 Edward Cody piece in the Washington Post (here). What is perhaps new is the posting of cellphone photographs of offending vehicles online, reported by Demick.

An earlier example of this well-worked-out system of RHP (Rank Hath Privilege) can be seen here, in a photograph taken three decades ago in Nanjing.