There's a long tradition in the US media of treating Chinese government policy as subtle and inscrutable expression of grand national strategy, so it's particularly funny that the CCP put a guy in charge who is simply a Marxist-Leninist fundamentalist. wsj.com/articles/china…
Like, the answers are all spelled out in the official speeches, but they are so indescribably boring to read it creates a kind of armor against foreign analysis. So we see a lot of nugatory head-scratching about what the CCP's chess moves mean for tech, for markets, and so on
Sometimes as a journalist you just have to grow a pair and read the Party texts. If the Korean analysts can stand to do it, you have no excuse.
A correct understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought is that it is a state religion, and journalists should approach China as they would any other theocracy. You don't have to understand the finest points of doctrine, but complete ignorance is professional malpractice.
The foreign policy of Vatican City, Saudi Arabia, or Iran becomes a lot less mysterious if you understand the sincerely held beliefs of those country's leaders. The long recess from needing to understand Chinese ideology is over, but no one wants to go back into the classroom
My advice to people is basically the same as Xi's: study Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Not the pre-Deng version of it, but the highly developed modern faith. Study it because that's the frame all public figures in China, whether they're believers or not, have to operate in
And if you work at Facebook, you're already one step ahead of the game. Just drop by Zuck's office to get your free copy of Xi's magnum dopus qz.com/308023/faceboo…
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