‘Who are we going to see?’ whispered Seb Coe as we were ushered into the VIP sanctum of the Bird’s Nest stadium, a place of thick snowy carpet and a horseshoe of white armchairs. ‘We’re gonna see Hu,’ I whispered back. ‘Who?’ ‘Hu.’ Before I could elucidate further we were shaking hands with the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China, general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, the 65-year-old Hu Jintao. For the last couple of hours I had been practising a phrase I had learned from my brother Max, who speaks fluent Mandarin. ‘He’ll love it,’ said Max. ‘It means, Very pleased to meet you.’ So it was with great excitement that I took the hand of the Chinese leader — a kindly-looking man with glossy black hair — and blurted my line. ‘Renshi ni hen gaoxing,’ I gushed, scanning his face for approval. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said, which was pleasing, though I think he said the same to Seb. We also met Jiang Zemin, the former paramount leader, and Hu’s predecessor. The workings of the Chinese Communist Party are of huge importance to geopolitics, and far from clear. Why is Jiang still knocking around? How did he become less paramount than Hu? Who knows? And Hu knows.