China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge

[Donald H]

I lived in China for eight years, studied Chinese language and Chinese history even before moving there, studied this relationship for most of my adult life, and know this history inside out. My father was in China during WWII, I am married to a woman from mainland China, etc. etc.

I know Tom, I was emperor at the time.

By the way, not all the problems of China in the “hundred years of humiliation” were caused by Westerners. The situation was far more complicated than that.

My concern is definitely for the Chinese, who are by no means “lost” to totalitarianism or fundamentally hostile to Americans or American culture. They are neither automatons nor blind to the regression happening under Xi’s present rule.

Of course if 1.4 billion Chinese long suffer under a single man’s cult of personality, and kneel to his corrupt single party bureaucracy, even if they are now economically more advanced and sophisticated than Russia, their society and culture will inevitably degenerate, become still more barron and corrupt, and bring nothing good to the world either.

All wrong again. It was not XiJinping that led what you call “the greatest success story in history” anymore than it was Mao or Stalin. If you talk about material gains you need to credit those like DengXiaoping who fought Mao’s madness, suffered, yet came back to introduce capitalism and capitalist incentives to make China what it is today. They led the industrious, hardworking and hard-studying Chinese people onto the road to economic success, opened China to massive trade with and investment from the West, and transformed, industrialized and urbanized their country. In the process scores of millions of Chinese were educated abroad and exposed to world culture in new and profound ways.

All that is being threatened now by XiJinping’s reactionary return to Mao & Stalin’s cult of personality.

The people of China worship Xi Jin Ping because of their huge rise to prosperity and world power. No matter who you think should get the credit, it's always goinig to be the country's leader that is in power. Imagine that some future president was to accomplish such miracles? You broke the bank with your American bullshit this time Tom!

 

[Unkotare]

I know Tom, I was emperor at the time.

The people of China worship Xi Jin Ping because of their huge rise to prosperity and world power. No matter who you think should get the credit, it's always goinig to be the country's leader that is in power. Imagine that some future president was to accomplish such miracles? You broke the bank with your American bullshit this time Tom!

You are an ignorant troll.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

New Minister of Defense and more signs of a PLA purge - Admiral Dong Jun is the new Minister of Defense, replacing Li Shangfu. Dong is the first naval officer to get that job….

Also in the last several days three senior executives from the military industrial complex lost their positions as delegates to the CPPCC, and nine PLA officers, including several from the Rocket Force as well as ones with experience in procurement, lost their positions as delegates to the NPC.

No explanations were given, but the removals are a clear sign that at least some of the rumors of a significant purge in the PLA and military industrial complex have been accurate. Given the number of senior officers and executives involved, and the likelihood that we only see the ones senior enough to join bodies like the NPC and the CPPCC, there may be a much larger network of officers and executives involved. That would likely point to this case, or cases, being more about corruption rather than some vast espionage network that fed secrets to the US.

Either way, this is messy for Xi and shows how deep the rot remains in the PLA after a decade of anti-corruption work and political rectifications, but ultimately these cases may work to Xi’s benefit both in terms of demonstrating the power he has to purge, and to cleanup any problems around weapons systems that could cause problems for the PLA in any future combat operations. The lessons about the problems corruption have caused the Russian military in Ukraine must be very stark for Xi and the PLA.

—Bill Bishop at Sinocism

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Excellent post. Decades of naivity and greed have created the Chinese Monster that is the CCP of today. We have to stop feeding the beast but I don't know how you force companies to do that without government overreach.

They’re enemy #1 in Climate Change

 

[Ringo]

In Jingzhou, Hubei province, more than 12,000 Communist Party members and officials have been mobilized to clear roads of snow and ice. The norm is 5 meters of road per person.

 

[justoffal]

This is globalism biting us in the ass.

Yep

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

These are the murderous goons that own your "president".

Trump was the dude doing business with them.

 

[MarathonMike]

Trump was the dude doing business with them.

Do you know the difference between "doing business" in China and taking millions in bribes from the Chinese? It's tricky, I can explain it if you need help.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

From an article in the WSJ, 5 March 2024 …

China’s Premier Steps Deeper Into Xi’s Shadow​ By Lingling Wei​

When Xi Jinping’s handpicked premier, Li Qiang, was anointed to the job a year ago, Li dutifully pledged to be an “executor” of the top leader’s decisions. In other words, there should be only one decision-maker in China.

Li is living up to his promise—and then some. And that spells even greater trouble for a struggling economy.

On Monday, just as Beijing was about to kick off its most public political event of the year, the spokesman for the National People’s Congress announced that Li won’t hold a press briefing at the close of the annual legislative meeting this year, and perhaps for the rest of his five-year term.

The premier’s annual press conference at the end of the NPC has been a highly choreographed affair, with screened questions and scripted answers. Still, it had been the one public interaction between global media and a top Chinese leader, and a rare window for the public onto the leadership’s thinking, particularly on the economy.

Li now becomes the first Chinese premier in three decades to not take journalists’ questions.

The NPC spokesman made it sound like the presser is no longer necessary even though it was more highly anticipated this year due to the ongoing economic malaise. Still, the move is in keeping with how Xi has torn down the pillars of the Chinese governance model built during Deng Xiaoping’s reform-and-opening era.

Gone are the days when the premier, as the de facto head of the government, was given authority over economic policy while the party chief took charge of ideology and politics. The premiership is now becoming fully subordinate to the supreme leader.

That means an end to any hopes that the premier could somehow help course-correct Xi’s policies to rebuild confidence in an economy mired in a mess largely of the leadership’s own making.

Uplifting narrative

Li’s work report to the legislature Tuesday again offered little relief to a public yearning for more decisive government help with issues ranging from an unprecedented property crisis to dwindling job opportunities and reduced welfare.

In the speech, Li largely ignored the problems—all in line with Xi’s directive on strengthening “economic propaganda and public opinion guidance” to promote an uplifting narrative on China’s economy.

The premier patted the government on the back for the 5.2% growth rate China achieved last year, even though for many Chinese it has felt more like a recession.

The 5%-or-so growth target Li announced for 2024 should also surprise no one. That goal in fact was decided when Xi laid out plans in 2020 to expand China’s wealth and double the size of the nation’s economy by 2035—plans that would require China’s economy to expand an average of about 5% annually over 15 years. Unless Xi has second thoughts about those plans, the growth target won’t change, regardless of the economic situation.

Chinese people have long felt particular affection for their premiers – a tradition going back to the first premier of the People’s Republic, Zhou Enlai, who saved many lives during the tumultuous years of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

Then there is Premier Zhu Rongji of the late 1990s and early 2000s, dubbed China’s “economic czar” for his decisiveness that led to a sweeping restructuring of the bloated state sector and more opportunities for private bosses and Western capital….

Even Li Qiang’s predecessor, the late Li Keqiang, widely seen as a weak No. 2 to Xi, showed occasional streaks of independence. In 2020, when the top leader was celebrating the government’s efforts in reducing poverty, the premier drew attention to the hundreds of millions of people still making just 1,000 yuan, or less than $140, a month at a press conference broadcast to the world.

The current premier under Xi just made all that a bygone era.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Litwin]

 

[Ringo]

China wants to allow children under the age of 8 to use a smartphone for only 40 minutes a day. Teenagers up to 16 years old - no more than an hour, and up to 18 years old - only 2 hours a day. At the same time, the restrictions will not apply to educational programs.
I think this is smart.