Xi was a princeling - the son of one of Mao's lieutenants, Xi Zhongxun, who had been purged and later rehabilitated. Colleagues described the younger Xi as humble, self-disciplined and hardworking but otherwise unremarkable. Even on the eve of his elevation to general secretary of the Communist Party there was little hint of what was to come. As land prices shot up because of the reforms, party officials across China were confiscating property from peasant farmers, selling it to developers, and pocketing a hefty cut. "To that end I shall support Rishi Sunak." irannews.ru "Each night after midnight people would start sharing video clips on social media," my Shanghai friend recalls. "They expressed their anger at the Communist Party, even at the very top leaders. They talked about how heartless and cruel this system has become." “Most of the developing world in Asia and Africa, including the Middle East, has not viewed the Ukraine war as the kind of definitive, transformational moment in international relations that the West does,” Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, wrote this month. The outline of a runway and the extraordinary 9km long artificial island emerged as we approached. Saudi crown prince ‘not attending Arab summit on doctors’ advice’ Nothing that Mao would recognise, Prof Karl says. A string of the professor's Facebook posts - showing the youngsters wearing their elaborate creations - garnered thousands of likes in a matter of days, and attracted coverage from Filipino media outlets.