China leaders' summer retreat to Beidaihe shrouded in secrecy

Unlike their predecessors Mao Tse-tung and Zhou Enlai, China's present leaders remain behind closed doors during their annual summer retreat to Beidaihe.

A short stretch of the beach at Beidaihe, the enclave to which the Chinese leadership decamps during the summer, is open to the public. The area is also popular with foreign visitors. (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times / August 14, 2012)

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times

August 16, 2012, 6:05 p.m.

BEIDAIHE, China — Celebrity sightings used to be part of the fun in Beidaihe, the summertime retreat of the Chinese Communist Party.

"In the old days, people would see Mao Tse-tung or Zhou Enlai walking around, shopping, eating in a restaurant, talking to ordinary people," said Yu Heping, 62, a lifelong resident who used to farm corn and sorghum and now works in the tourism industry.

Nowadays, the presence of the Chinese leadership is viewed primarily in fleeting shadows through tinted glass, as their black Audis glide past stifling security roadblocks. The leaders remain secluded in their enclave, with their own beaches, their own restaurants and their own gardeners and cleaners who come from Beijing. Locals are rarely hired or admitted into the compound.

"We never see them nowadays — only see their motorcades," said Yu.

It is just another sign of the isolated and secretive nature of the Chinese leadership, ever opaque in its policymaking, even as it has sought to convey a more open and welcoming appearance.

The Chinese hierarchy is well aware that Beidaihe can convey an impression of elitism. In 2003, President Hu Jintao canceled the retreat, in part a public relations ploy to show that the leadership was giving up its perks and in part to minimize the meddling of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who thrived in Beidaihe's smoky, backroom ambience. Later, the tradition resumed; the party elders simply feeling a need to decamp somewhere away from the prying eyes of Beijing.

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