China’s political bigwigs held a meeting last month which was supposed to help set a course for the future. One of the country’s top commentators attempted to parse the bureaucratese coming out of the meeting and got himself in hot water with the communist party, leading to his silencing online and criticism from state media.
To really appreciate this, you need to know that Hu Xijin has been one of China’s leading commentators for many years. Until 2021 he was the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a state-run paper that is published in Chinese and English for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party. You won’t find any criticism of China or President Xi Jinping in the Global Times. What you will find is a string of anti-American, pro-China stories in which the CCP is always portrayed as a hero on the national and world stage. And as I said, Hu Xijin was the top guy for many…
