Disappearance Of Chinese Megastars Hints At Cultural Revolution 2.0
Mark Twain famously said, History doesn t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. That seems to ring true in Communist China. Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, has recently been cracking down on sectors such as tech, education, and entertainment in an attempt to reshape China s culture and the economy more in line with socialist ideology.
Given that the Chinese government has the media industry under firm control, major state media would not have re-posted a blog from an unknown figure unless they received direct orders from someone higher up in the Chinese Communist Party s propaganda department. Therefore, people began to speculate: did someone higher in the CCP tell Li to write such a piece, or did Li write it on his own, but someone important liked it and instructed prominent media outlets to share it? Was the widespread sharing by party mouthpieces such as People s Daily meant to test the public s reaction or represent an official endorsement of his call for a red revolution?
Bad for Chinese people and the PRC but good for us in the sense that we’ll have a less formidable competitor. Could be another case of US exceptionalism: not the most virtuous, but the luckiest.