Our local air force radar station doesn’t officially exist. Its junior personnel are friendly when we meet unless an officer is about—then they cut me dead, as if I didn’t exist. So to get a call from the station was a surprise, more so when a serviceman told me his leaders were coming to the mountain and wanted to visit our coffee shop “to sample the western-style atmosphere.”

We were closed that day and I was going to a lunch banquet which was bound to involve serious drinking. But the chance to meet a senior air force officer was too good to pass up—not that I wanted to pry. I agreed to open specially, after lunch.

The lunch was attended by some police, one of whom asked me what I thought about Britain going to war again. It turned out he was referring to Syria; the Chinese press must have