At the end of our last newsletter, we mentioned that there would be a Xi-Putin meeting. Well, it happened.
This year Xi hosted the Road and Belt Forum. Someone found group photos of the previous two so you can see how well the Road and Belt project is going:
And as people noted, the 2023 photo included the wives, to make it look better.
As reported by international media, Xi and Putin had secret meetings and no one knows what they plotted together. WeChat/Weixin had a search index for keywords. On October 18th, someone took a screenshot of the search index of “immigration”:
As you see, the number of searches for this word jumped 10 times compared with the daily average of September.
One Chinese writer connected it to the meeting with Putin, saying: you know last time they met was February 2022 and Putin invaded Ukraine after that. Middle- class Chinese are scared when they see these two meet.
Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming dynasty (right before the Qing dynasty) is a household name. He committed suicide by hanging on a tree just outside of the Forbidden City when the Qing army arrived. His reputation can be summarized in this paragraph from Wikipedia:
While the Chongzhen Emperor was not especially incompetent by the standards of the later Ming, he nevertheless sealed the fate of the Ming dynasty. In many ways, he did his best to save the dynasty. However, despite a reputation for hard work, the emperor’s paranoia, impatience, stubbornness and lack of regard for the plight of his people doomed his crumbling empire. His attempts at reform did not take into account the considerable decline of Ming power, which was already far advanced at the time of his accession. Over the course of his 17-year reign, the Chongzhen Emperor executed seven military governors, 11 regional commanders, replaced his minister of defence 14 times, and appointed an unprecedented 50 ministers to the Grand Secretariat (equivalent to the cabinet and chancellor). Even though the Ming dynasty still possessed capable commanders and skilled politicians in its dying years, the Chongzhen Emperor’s impatience and paranoid personality prevented any of them from enacting any real plan to salvage a perilous situation. /
Lately, a history book on Chongzhen was republished with a modified title: “Chongzhen, the emperor that ended his dynasty with hard work”. The original title was “The stories of Chongzhen”. Somehow this modified title triggered someone and the book was taken off all shelves. And of course, people could not help making the connection.
Since Chongzhen ruled China for 17 years, now people have a new number to expect.
Since Oct 7th, social media all over the world seems to be focused on one thing: the Israel - Hamas - Palestine conflict.
Although Chinese social media is separated from the world by the great firewall, people did find the topic fascinating as well. The difference is that the Chinese in general are not familiar with the history of the region. They get second or third-hand information from other Chinese or the state-owned media. Still, Chinese social media is also divided into two sides: pro-Israel vs pro-Hamas/Palestine.
The pro-Israel side is most of the Chinese elites. For example, Tang Danhong a writer who used to make documentaries supporting the Tibetans, later married an Israeli and lives in Israel since 2005: she is seen actively tweeting about her experience and supporting the IDF. Lilaoshi, the biggest Chinese Twitter account interviewed Tang and is also pro-Israel. More influential is a Chinese historian Qin Hui, whose series of articles defending Israel’s occupation was widely circulated inside China. People who read his articles had no idea of the history of atrocities against Palestinians. As a historian, he seemed to be completely biased. He has a history of Islamophobia so I am not surprised at all. But many are suprised, because Qin is one of the most respected historians on modern Chinese history. But the moment he ventured out of China, he seemed to be very incompetent.
The pro-Hamas side is most of the public who watch the state media. Anti-semitism is also rampant. In a society that lacks freedom of expression and exchange of viewpoints, only the most extreme and simplistic views can be spread. The Chinese government, to gain leadership of the world, has decided to side with Palestine, despite the fact that the Israeli government has always been quite friendly with CCP, including selling them the surveillance technology to police Xinjiang.
Our old friend Hu Xijin might have summarized the official attitude towards Israel well:
“China is a big country, do you think it is necessary to flatter a small Israel? Does Israel hold a grudge against China? Is it qualified to do so? It can complain to China, but does it really dare to offend China and make itself China’s enemy? I dare it!”
There is a small group of human rights activists and writers who are very worried by the prevailing sentiments on Chinese social media. Lack of knowledge of history and the current situation is one of the main reasons, but social Darwinism (seeing rich Western countries sided with Israel) is also at play. Chinese society also has its own share of Islamophobia. Some notice that in general people who criticize the CCP’s policies on Uyghurs also criticize Israel’s war on Gaza civilians.
In October, a toddler was bitten by a big dog. After one week in ICU, she recovered. But somehow this incident reminded the authority of the existence of stray dogs and cats. All over China, many disturbing videos and images of killing of stray dogs and cats sparked online outcries. However, the dog that bit the toddler is not a stray dog, its owner did not put a leash on it to control it. So in many cities, dogs with owners are also targeted.
Back in 1958, Mao also started a campaign, called the four pests campaign. This public campaign is often associated with a lack of rule of law, lack of knowledge, and mobilization of mass movement at the will of the leadership. Not surprising that many people feel distraught.
On the morning of October 27th, Beijing time, to most Chinese people’s shock, they learned that the ex-premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack while vacationing in Shanghai. Li was second in command in the central government for ten years and just retired in March. According to official news media, he had a heart attack while swimming in the hotel and died the next day shortly after midnight. He was only 68, very young for top Chinese leaders. Most leaders at his level have a medical team dedicated to their health 24 hours a day. Li’s two predecessors are still alive and well.
The central government reported on his death very quickly, and it was also decided no big funeral ceremony would be held. Many embassies of Western countries expressed condolences on Weibo. All over China people are showing their sadness and a pop song “unfortunately not you” became trendy and promptly banned. The song briefly became popular and was banned when Jiang Zemin died last year.
Li came from a humble family background (his father was just a local communist cadre). He enrolled in Beijing University through hard studying and good exam scores, unlike Xi, who got into Tsinghua University because of his father. He later studied under Li Yining, a leading market economist of modern China and obtained a Ph.D in economics. He had no corruption scandal and was expected to succeed Hu Jintao as the president until Xi took the position. To some Chinese elites, he was the last capable party leader who still wanted economic reforms, but his tenure as the Premier was severely undermined by Xi and he achieved nothing in the end. He famously said that “the water of Changjiang (Yangtze) and Yellow rivers will not flow backward”, understood by many that the reform to open up the economy will not be reversed. However, when he stepped down and Xi’s loyals replaced him, many people lost faith in the direction the country was going.
The contrast and difference between Li and Xi is huge. After Xi declared that the war on poverty had ended in China withhuge success, Li told the public that there were 600 million Chinese with monthly income lower than 1000 RMB (137 USD). It’s no surprise that many believe that Xi might have staged the heart attack or prevented timely medical care. Conspiracy theory was spreading on social media.
Historically, when a popular high-level leader died, the public stage some form of protest. When Zhou Enlai died, there was the 1976 Tiananmen incident. Many people expressed their sadness at the loss of Zhou, as a way to show their deep anger toward Mao and the Gang of Four. Of course, the more people know of the history of CCP, the more they understood that Zhou was no better than Mao, but that came much much later. The 1989 democracy movement was sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang. So it is understandable that Xi might be a little bit uneasy right now. But there will not be public unrest this time.
On October 31st, many citizens in Shanghai came out to express their feelings. We give you some flavours of it below.
Re-enacting of a scene from the Movie “Farewell my concubine”: when Cheng Dieyi was publicly prosecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
If you have not seen the movie, it is a must see!
Unfortunately the film director who made this wonderful film now specializes in propaganda films. His latest work is “The great war” for the October 1st golden week. It has extremely low box office performance even in China.
Reading out from Lu Xun. Lu Xun, one of the most beloved writers in modern China. He went to Japan to study medicine but realized that medicine would not save the Chinese (says the sign the young man holds), so he became a writer. The young man was reading a paragraph from Lu Xun, calling for young people to ignore all the pessimism and cynicism, do whatever they can and make their voice heard, be the light that is needed and don’t wait. The police then said “okay, enough”. And young people around were laughing.
Charlie Munger made his Halloween debut with his hourly long podcast interview. It is not a very nice experience to listen, I can tell you that because I tried. But the best of the best is summarized already for you:
Many Chinese people on Twitter asked: how much investment he has put in China that he wants to sell off fast?
Meanwhile, others see and think differently:
Nomura’s chief China economist Lu Ting: Economic conditions in China may remain poor or even deteriorate further in coming months; the expected, econ-focused 3rd plenum may not happen after all — just one more norm Xi would breaks if that’s the case.
Guardian reported: “China’s billionaires looking to move their cash, and themselves, out”.
Finally, the New Yorker just published a long essay from Evan Osnos on the current mood of people inside China: “China’s Age of Malaise”. If you have more time after watching “Farewell My Concubine”, read it (around 12700 words).