Looking back to the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, when China was controversially selected to be the “guest of honour” nation, I find that the back and forth over dissent and freedom of expression (which fascinated me then) seems less interesting than something I barely noticed at the time: a dog that didn't bark. I don't recall seeing any books by or images of Hu Jintao, then China's paramount leader, in the Chinese official display area.
The pattern then was for Chinese top leaders to release books only after they had stopped being General Secretary of the Communist Party and President. So, when the Frankfurt event took place, the most recent collections of published speeches were still those of Jiang Zemin, who had ceded Party leadership to Hu in 2002 and the presidency to him in 2003.
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