This a guest article by Charles Parton.

Mr. Parton is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, and has been a Specialist Adviser on China to Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. He is a trustee of the environmental NGO China dialogue. Having spent 22 years of his 37- year diplomatic career working in or on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in his final posting, he was seconded to the EU Delegation in Beijing, where he focussed on Chinese politics and internal developments. In 2017 he returned to Beijing for four months as Adviser to the British Embassy to cover the CCP's 19th Congress.