The fields are dotted with Russian missiles that have remained unexploded because of the soft soil. But he added that if Rishi Sunak won, he would have his support. irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru Fictional story On a chilly winter morning in January 1990, I stepped off a night ferry onto a dockside in the city of Guangzhou. It was my first glimpse of China. The air smelled sulphurous from burning coal. Outside the streets were a river of bicycles, ridden by workers in blue caps and Mao jackets. Occasionally the bicycles parted for a wheezing bus or official car. "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." In November 2015, I took off from the Philippine Island of Palawan in a tiny single engine Cessna. Our destination was the Philippine-controlled atoll of Pagasa, 400 miles away in the middle of the South China Sea. Our plan was to pass close to a new Chinese military base, built on an artificial island atop "mischief reef". He got caught in China's biggest and longest Covid lockdown. It was supposed to last four days, then another four, then another. Soon, the hotel staff stopped telling him.