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.
