Credibility at all costs
It is every elected leader's nightmare: a public faux pas.
Some are legendary, such as the time George Bush senior threw up in the lap of Japan's then prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa back in 1992.
Or when former Australian prime minister Malcom Fraser was spotted stumbling into the lobby of a hotel in Memphis - sans trousers - in 1986.
Put in context, then, it isn't so bad when the mayor of Wuhan trips and sprains his ankle during a visit to the city by Premier Wen Jiabao earlier this month.
Mayor Li Xiansheng may have missed out on tripping the light fantastic with Premier Wen, but he wasn't about to let a sprained ankle stop him from making a trip to Hong Kong this week to meet investors, turning up at a press conference in a wheelchair.
'The most important thing about market economics is credibility,' he said. 'If I didn't come, it wouldn't reflect credibility.'
