It was the lone disruption in one of the most closely choreographed events in China: The country’s former top leader, Hu Jintao, was suddenly led out of the closing ceremony of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress…

“This was an astonishing episode — even during the Mao period, you didn’t see a dramatic disruption of the congress like this,” said Victor Shih, a specialist in Chinese politics at the University of California at San Diego…

As Mr. Hu is escorted out of the hall, he passes behind 19 other high-ranking party officials seated at the same long table.

Almost none of them give any indication that anything out of the ordinary is occuring. A few are engaged in conversation. Most stare straight ahead…

“Here was Hu Jintao, the former highest leader of your party and a man who had given so many of you political opportunities. And how do you treat him now?” Professor Wu said in a podcast interview with the Times columnist Li Yuan. “This incident demonstrated the tragic reality of Chinese politics and the fundamental lack of human decency in the Communist Party.”