While Bill Clinton occasionally enjoys the summer solitude of Martha's Vineyard and Boris Yeltsin often relaxes in the vineyards on the Black Sea, Chinese President Jiang Zemin always obtains respite from the oppressive summer heat in Beidaihe, a beach resort 150 miles east of Beijing on the Bohai Sea. So, too, do his whole cabinet, all of whom are allotted orange-roofed villas hidden among pine and cypress trees which can only be glimpsed from the "sea-admiring pavilion" on a hill behind the town.
In this way the Chinese leaders holiday and plot strategy together for the coming year. Their regime in Beidaihe is quite spartan, with exercises at 6.30 a.m. and then personnel and policy debates after breakfast, though the evenings are apparently quite relaxed, with meals prepared by chefs seconded from Beijing hotels.
Last year, they used the Beidaihe sessions to decide some leadership questions, such as Li Peng taking over the parliament and Zhu Rongji moving up to become premier. This year they are expected to debate the progress of the so-called "three-fixeds" plan, under which all government ministries will fix their functions, organisations, and staff levels in accordance with tough new streamlining plans.
They also have to get in some swimming, an exercise which in China carries great political significance. Deng Xiaoping was photographed taking a dip here in 1989, apparently to show he was still in good health: Mao once swam in the Yangtze to demonstrate that he was actually still alive, and President Jiang went for a plunge off Waikiki beach in Hawaii on his recent US visit to reassure the masses (Chinese, not American) of his vigour.
A watering spot for Chinese leaders since the Qing Dynasty, Beidaihe was built up by westerners as a seaside resort in the early part of the century. English railway engineers began the transformation in the 1890s when they came across what was then a little fishing village. Villas and summer cottages were built in the following years by English, French, Germans, Russians, Austrians, and Italians who flocked to the town from the foreign concessions in Beijing and Tianjin to indulge in the new fad of bathing.
Some of the old European seaside architecture remains, along with relics of the past like Kiesslings, the former Austrian restaurant which sells pastries and seafood. With the coming of communism, the town developed as many as 200 sanatoriums which were strictly reserved for model employees, soldiers and work units.
But times are changing again and anyone can go to Beidaihe now, and find a B&B among the houses of local townspeople and peasants who supply 74,000 beds for tourists, according to Liung Dianrong, director of Beidaihe Tourism. Foreign visitors - many from Russia - are now numbered in the tens of thousands. It's still a summer destination for some western diplomats who stay in a special "Guest House for Diplomatic Missions", though they tend to get bored quickly and head back to Beijing.
Most visitors travel down from the capital by electric train which is fast and efficient and full of cheerful Chinese trippers with buckets and spades. The five-hour drive is much too dangerous to be worth it. The road has two lanes in each direction but so many obstructions clutter the inner lane - donkeys, tractors, geese, bicycles, hay carts - that the slowest trucks hug the crown of the road and the only way to pass is on the inside.
Beidaihe now rivals any Mediterranean resort for expense and overcrowding. Renting an umbrella and wicker seat costs about £6 and the sand is covered from early morning with reclining bodies. The lifeguards wear Nike tee-shirts, just like anywhere in the world, and ice cream and Coke vendors vie with professional photographers for people with spare cash.
This beach still has some Chinese characteristics, however. Bikinis are a very rare sight: Beidaihe is no Baywatch. China has travelled light years in two decades of opening up but semi-nudity is frowned upon - and to go topless on Beidaihe beach would probably merit some time in a political correction camp.
Another Chinese characteristic is that all the rocks along the shore are categorised by their animal-like shape (viz, the "tiger rock") or by whether Mao sat on them and composed poetry about life on the ocean waves. The compact area of hills, woods, inlets and creeks around the resort is also popular with the world's birders, as over 400 species of birds turn up here for a drink and a rest on their way up and down the coast.
There are shark nets strung along the perimeter of the bathing area but no one recalls seeing sharks for a long time, apart from plump Beijing real-estate developers stretched out on the beach.