At a secluded estate outside San Francisco in 2023, Xi Jinping had scarcely finished his lunch of herbed ricotta ravioli when his security detail “sprang into action”, says Lingling Wei in The Wall Street Journal. Their mission? To prevent any trace of the Chinese president’s DNA from falling into foreign hands. The dark-suited agents grabbed Xi’s plate and utensils and sprayed them down with an unidentified liquid. This is merely the sharp end of great-power diplomatic visits. As Xi prepares to welcome Donald Trump to China later this month, hundreds of government officials on both sides are racing to make sure the two leaders say the right thing, go to the right place and don’t get poisoned.

A motorcade of presidential limousines – the heavily armoured “Beasts” – will be shipped ahead and the Secret Service will arrive early to sweep venues for bugs, set up “eavesdrop-proof rooms” and negotiate how many armed Americans can operate on Chinese soil. Menus will be pre-agreed down to the smallest ingredient. But there are some things no amount of planning can anticipate. When Barack Obama arrived in Hangzhou in 2016, he had to exit Air Force One via the plane’s own fold-out steps rather than the red-carpeted rolling staircase – the driver of the stair truck didn’t speak English, so the Secret Service wouldn’t let him pull alongside. And on Trump’s last visit in 2017, his security detail got into a fistfight with Xi’s men in a corridor of the Great Hall of the People while the leaders were meeting inside. An American diplomat and his Chinese counterpart had to prise the combatants apart.

🇨🇳🪧 During Xi’s 2023 visit to California, pro-China demonstrators with ties to Beijing lined the motorcade route waving Chinese flags the size of bedsheets. Behind them was “one of the largest groups of anti-Xi demonstrators in recent American memory”. Every time they waved one of their protest banners, up went the oversized flags to obstruct the view from Xi’s car, or any passing cameras.

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The rest of today’s heroes and villains are easily available for the stunningly negligible price of £4 a month (or, if you really love a bargain, £40 for the whole first year). Which is good, because they’re bangers. Normally we’d do a little teaser, like “ooh, which Spice Girl was spotted with a smile on her face sneaking out of the broom cupboard at Simpson’s with Nigel Farage” or “you’ll never guess how many guinea pigs Tyson Fury keeps in his bedroom”.

But today, no.

It’s the bank holiday weekend, you’re probably busy, so let’s just get on with it: subscribe, you will be so glad you did. Then put your phone down and go and enjoy yourself.

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