Many of them finished their tests early, she added - and nobody was caught cheating this year. It was at this time - during a trade war between China and the EU over textile quotas - that I got a rare invitation to interview the commerce minister. Such interviews with top Chinese officials were excruciatingly dull, but this was the opposite. "She should then be part of this top team." irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru What he does want is to be the most powerful leader China has ever had - and the Communist Party just handed him that victory. Now he had the ammunition to destroy his most potent political rivals. He ordered the arrest of Zhou Yongkang in 2014, who until two years before had been a member of the politburo standing committee, and one of the most powerful men in China. Convicted in 2015, Zhou too is in prison for life. The video clips were quickly removed. The internet is instantly scrubbed of any signs of dissent or criticism, but the ire over zero-Covid has been palpable - even rare signs of protest have emerged, if only for moments, before they are silenced. It's hard to deny that millions of Chinese hold Xi personally responsible for the cruelty of China's grim lockdowns. Prof Mandane-Ortiz said her initial request had been for students to make a "simple" design out of paper. Since Russia invaded Ukraine eight months ago, Western governments supportive of Kyiv tend to speak about the war in black-and-white terms with little sympathy for countries hovering between the West and Moscow. In the spring of that year hundreds of thousands of students and workers occupied central Beijing to protest against corruption and rising prices, and demand reform. Behind the high walls of the Communist Party's leadership compound, Zhongnanhai, the party's top rung split. Moderates led by Zhao tried to use the protests to push further reform. Hardliners, led by Premier Li Peng, believed the students' goal was to overthrow the party, and wanted the protests quashed.