The China powder keg: JOHN HUMPHRYS on a nation that's either on the edge of becoming THE superpower - or exploding into anarchy

By John Humphrys

Last updated at 1:21 PM on 6th November 2010 

The chanting, when it ­began, sounded angry. I was in my hotel room in Beijing trying to put ­together a report on ­political repression for the Today programme and this ­sounded as if it might be just what I needed.

I had been in China for more than a week. Everywhere I went people had been telling me that things had changed so much since I first started reporting from here more than 30 years ago that I would scarcely ­recognise the place.

True, there are many protests, sometimes violent, but almost always out in the ­provinces and motivated by a single ­grievance.

Yet here we were in the heart of the capital, a short stroll from Tiananmen Square, and something was going on. I grabbed my producer and, as the shouting grew louder, we ran outside — to be ­confronted by a tug-of-war.

The kitchen staff had challenged the hotel management to a contest and there they were in the middle of the street, heaving away on a thick rope, the chefs’ hats falling into the gutter, the managers’ ties askew, all of them shouting fit to burst. The ­managers won.

Not quite the scene I had imagined, but what’s interesting is that it is possible for a foreign journalist to wander the streets of this city, microphone at the ready, and nobody will take a blind bit of notice.

When I first started reporting from here, that would have been unimaginable.

We needed permits in triplicate to go anywhere and we were always accompanied by ­minders. Today it’s even possible — with a little effort — to talk to dissidents.

So here’s the first contradiction of ­modern China.

The Communist leadership of this country has an absolute monopoly on power, but foreign journalists have never been so free to ply their trade.

What’s even more remarkable is that so many people in senior Communist Party positions are now happy to admit openly that it’s a mistake to prevent ­Chinese ­people speaking freely to each other.

Not that they can say anything they choose.

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