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23 october 2015, china comes to manchester



Once several years ago, a small cog in the machine started shouting china, china china as the economic powerhouse we need to hook our economy up to (see 27 april 2013, china in my pocket). Today, after a few of the thousand flowers we planted bloomed, we were visited by the greatest of chinese heights, president xi jinping, as he toured around the town and the airport waving investment as he went and beaming brand manchester back home to a billion souls. If you look hard around 2 seconds into the film (sat down, second from left), you can see me straining to get a decent view, although the man on the stage is my boss, introducing el presidente. David cameron was there too, which was nice. The president was most effusive about manchester, capital of the north, dynamic modern metropolis and world centre of media, science and football, all of which I'm sure will be culled for an age to come. He got to see the national graphene institute (and I'm going to say I had a hand in that too) and then to the etihad campus, home of £1billion foreign investment (and manchester city) and now of "that" selfie. Shame the poor guy thought he was being taken to a football club he'd actually heard of (ok, I like city too these days) and then home via my own wee place of work, which made for an interesting break in an otherwise meeting-filled afternoon. Quite an entourage, quite a journey. Here is the slick version of the video.

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