Democracy With Chinese Characteristics

In a statement highlighting his fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of democracy, President Hu addresses the party congress:

Hu Jintao, China’s Communist party chief, on Monday vowed to introduce greater democracy to the world’s largest political organisation but reminded members they must “always agree” with their leaders.

In a speech to the five-yearly congress of China’s 73m-member ruling party, Mr Hu stressed the importance of expanding “intra-party democracy”, increasing party transparency and strengthening limits on the authority of individual Communist cadres.

This thinking is pervasive on any number of topics. It's why I keep a cinderblock to beat my head against just to the right of my telephone. Comes in handy all too often.