By BAISE SHENGDANJIE
Weather Correspondent
BEIJING (China Daily Show) – An unprovoked flurry of snowfall hit Beijing late this week, bringing the country’s inexorable rise to a grinding halt.
Cabs around the city vanished, as the capital’s traditional traffic jams were replaced by the occasional car, albeit ones still moving at a crawl.
State media scrambled into action as soon as the Minister of Propaganda’s driver was able to get to work.
The unprecedented weather impinged on China’s inalienable sovereignty and “deeply hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,” as well as making it a bitch to commute, local newspaper the Global Times thundered.
Salt trucks hit the city’s major roads as early as two hours ago – but by then it was already too late for China’s GDP, which rapidly dropped overnight from a sprightly seven-percent annual forecast growth-rate to a distinctly sluggish six.
The small amount of snowfall presents newly appointed President Xi Jinping with his first major crisis, analysts say. Like most Beijingers, however, when Xi looked out his window this morning, he simply groaned deeply, and burrowed further under the covers.
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