The great China handover

It is not often that two superpowers choose their leaders within days of each other. Last week we looked at the coverage of the US elections - and the cacophony of media voices that covered them. This week, it was China’s turn when it announced its new leader President Xi Jinping at the once-in-a-decade political event  - the 18th Congress of the ruling Communist Party.

And this time round, unlike the US, the media in China spoke with one clear voice: the official line was scripted, press conferences were tightly controlled, the internet slowed to a crawl, and Google was among the sites sporadically blocked by what has come to be known as the 'Great Firewall of China'.

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