Day: October 14, 2022

Xi Jinping Has Fallen Into the Dictator Trap

Chin@Strategy

The Covid policy has angered citizens and saddled local governments with the huge costs of constant testing and quarantining. Private companies stricken by the disruption and regulatory crackdowns are laying off employees, and college graduates are struggling to find jobs. For the first time in years, unemployment has become a serious political risk for the party, and a tanking Chinese real estate market threatens to pull down the entire economy. On foreign policy, Mr. Xi abandoned decades of Chinese restraint in favor of a muscular approach designed to restore China’s…

The Guardian view on Xi Jinping and China’s party congress: no end in sight | Editorial

Chin@Strategy

“Food, not PCR tests … Reform, not the Cultural Revolution … We want to be citizens, not slaves.” And alongside that, most astonishingly, a call to overthrow Xi Jinping. The man who dared to unveil those demands on banners hung from a bridge in Beijing will pay dearly. Protests are still rarer and more harshly treated since Mr Xi took over; this was even more remarkable in the heavily policed period before the national party congress begins on Sunday. When China’s leader took power 10 years ago, people assumed he…

Why the West Once Thought Xi Jinping Would Be a Reformer

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement For someone with such honorable credentials in Chinese Communist Party history, Xi Jinping has spent decades behaving modestly. The son of Xi Zhongxun – a CCP historical figure who not only played an important role in protecting Mao Zedong during the Long March but also provided essential leadership for the success of economic reforms promoted by Deng Xiaoping in Guangdong – the now Chinese national leader was seen both domestically and externally as a politician who prospered through silence, diligence, and humility. Even in 2012, on the cusp of…

Taiwan Intelligence Chief Pictures Reignite Debate Over Chinese Disinformation Ops

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement Although not widely reported internationally, a scandal involving the director-general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) – Taiwan’s main intelligence agency – has raised concerns about Chinese disinformation, particularly as amplified by domestic media outlets. In mid-September, screenshots alleging to show a secret trip to Thailand by NSB director-general Chen Ming-tong began to circulate online. The screenshots originated from a Twitter account with the username @andreny45652235, which has since been removed. The account only had six tweets, raising suspicions about its veracity. Subsequently, the screenshots began to circulate in…

What’s at Stake for Africa in China’s 20th Party Congress?

Chin@Strategy

Advertisement In just a few days, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will convene in Beijing to design the country’s trajectory for the coming five to 10 years as the party pursues its 2035 goals. This year will witness the 20th National Party Congress, which many international commentators have viewed through the primary lens of who will be appointed to China’s top governing roles.  Some have even described the potential for 69-year-old Xi Jinping – general secretary of the Communist Party, president of the People’s Republic of China, and chairman of…

China’s Internet Censors Race to Quell Beijing Protest Chatter

Chin@Strategy

China’s internet censors are going to great lengths to shut down any discussion of a rare public protest condemning Xi Jinping as a “despotic traitor” and denouncing the country’s Covid-19 policies just days before the start of an all-important Communist Party congress. When a column of smoke appeared on Thursday over the Sitong Bridge overpass in the Haidian district of Beijing, it drew attention to a protester who had hung banners openly bashing China’s top leader by name and criticizing the country’s “zero Covid” policy, including one calling for “freedom…

Social media footage shows rare anti-Xi Jinping protest in China – video

Chin@Strategy

Chinese authorities have censored discussion of a rare protest in Beijing in which large banners were unfurled on a flyover on Thursday calling for boycotts and the removal of Xi Jinping, just days before the Communist party congress, China’s most important event of its five-year political cycle. ‘We want food, not PCR tests. We want freedom, not lockdowns. We want respect, not lies. We want reform, not a cultural revolution. We want a vote, not a leader. We want to be citizens, not slaves,’ said one banner, while a second called…

China’s submarines can be quieter, more powerful with new pump-jet: scientists

Chin@Strategy

Simulation experiments conducted at a ground testing facility suggested the new design could increase the thrust of a pump-jet at slower speeds while reducing the noisy vibration significantly “at most characteristic frequencies”, said the team led by professor Hua Hongxing, of the State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The first modern ducted propeller was built by Italian inventor Secondo Campini in Venice in 1931. In the 1980s the British navy made the earliest use of pump-jet technology in its Trafalgar-class submarine. Now pump-jet…

‘We all saw it’: anti-Xi Jinping protest electrifies Chinese internet

Chin@Strategy

Chinese authorities have strictly censored discussion of a rare protest in Beijing on Thursday that saw large banners unfurled on a flyover calling for boycotts and the removal of Xi Jinping, just days before China’s most important event of its five-year political cycle. Photos and videos of the protest on the Sitong bridge emerged on social media on Thursday afternoon, also showing plumes of smoke billowing from the bridge over a major thoroughfare in the Haidian district of the capital. “We want food, not PCR tests. We want freedom, not…

Xi Jinping, China’s Leader, Embodies His Authoritarian Era

Chin@Strategy

In his first years as China’s leader, Xi Jinping paid for his own steamed dumplings in a cheap diner, casually rolled up his trouser legs to avoid splashes in the rain, and was serenaded with sugary pop tunes. His image-makers cast him as “Xi Dada,” the people’s firm but genial “Uncle Xi.” How vastly different now. A decade on, Mr. Xi looms over the country like a stern Communist monarch, reflecting on China’s fallen ancient dynasties and determined to win its lasting ascendancy in a turbulent world. Chinese officials praise…