One day last November, nine men wearing identical wide-brim hats and ankle-length overcoats, and carrying identical canvas bags, stepped off a plane in Düsseldorf and settled into a hotel in Duisburg in the industrial Ruhr.
They were members of a Chinese Communist delegation come to negotiate the purchase of a steel plant from Demag, A.G., West Germany's biggest producer of steelmaking equipment.
The Chinese worked with impressive togetherness. When, in the midst of negotiating sessions, one indicated that he had to go to the bathroom, all nine went. Turning down social invitations from their German hosts, the Chinese returned to their hotel...
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