Colorful History of a Power Hotel in Beijing - NYTimes.com

Colorful History of a Power Hotel in Beijing - NYTimes.com: To the untrained eye, the Jingxi Hotel, with its box-like, Soviet-style architecture dating to the late 1950s, is just like any number of buildings that line Beijing’s central east-west boulevard. But beneath its deceptively gray and drab exterior, the Jingxi may be the most concentrated unofficial seat of power in China: For the last four days, it was the site of the Third Plenum of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, where Chinese leaders tried to hammer out a reform agenda for the coming decade and beyond.