On one side of the world, vast and icy warehouses packed to the rafters with frozen pork thrum quietly away in every corner of China. On the other side of the world, a cargo ship sets off from Dover loaded with more carcasses to add to the shelves.

The ship, which will sail from Dover to Gibraltar, from Gibraltar to Suez and then across the Indian Ocean to China is one of many such vessels; so far this year, some 21,000 tons of British pork have been shipped to China, up 73pc on the previous year.

Thus begins a curious tale of how pigs born in the UK are shoring up Chinese communism, with the help of those mysterious warehouses. Even if none of the British shipment actually does find itself stacked inside – we cannot know for sure, because the Chinese pork economy is as opaque as it is vast – it will, if indirectly, help the Communist government keep its stores full and its people fed.

For this is the point of the warehouses: together, they are China’s “Strategic Pork Reserve”, a colossal, sprawling system whose goal is not only to maintain the price of pork, but also to maintain the Communist party’s hold on power.