What makes the Xu Zhiyong article so amazing is people writing about China the last 1-3 years mostly have no idea what they are talking about. Xi was made Secretary General in 2012. Most people in hushed conversations date major changes to around that time, though some will 1/n
Put the date as early as 2010-2011. Working technically as a Chinese state employee who was slow to pick up on these winds, it was 2014 or so before I picked up on how bad things were getting and the fear that was being spread in state institutions. It took me another 2/n
1-2 years to get a scope of how bad things were. Party members were terrified even if they supported the Party. However in hushed quiet tones out of sight, you heard people talking about their discontent with the Xi and the state of things in China. This goes for many 3/n
What I would consider elite and many I would consider generally favorably disposed to the Party. There is a lot of unhappiness. How fragile the broader institutions are is very difficult to guage. I mention all this for a couple reasons. First, all the Acela Corridor nimrods 4/n
That magically didn't know any if this until 2017 at the earliest or consider China a threat but are considered experts for their yearly trips to the Shanghai Ritz wouldn't know what is happening in China if it bit them in the ass are now the grown ups in the room? Get real. 5/n
Second, if you are a journalist, academic, or think tanker in China, the ONLY people your will talk to are people the CCP had approved for external consumption. Period. Full. Stop. You are being fed the Party line and if you aren't smart enough to figure that out, 6/n
I pity your ignorance. I can count on one maybe two hand the people who could go to China or be in China and get honest answers about sensitive things. Third, the conversation about China in the US had fundamentally changed and it is about damn time and I will attack idiocy 7/n
That spews nonsense about managing China's rise. It isn't about economic competition. It's about a purely cancerous mass that is evil and opposed to any concept of human freedom and dignity. You don't manage that. That regime needs to be wiped out not treated delicate genius 8/n
We are absolutely changing the conversation about the CCP and it's ability to compromise swathes of the population to make them willing ignore evil. If you can't stand up and say that about the CCP, you should never offer a moral or ethical opinion on any political matter again.
