It is no coincidence that the Ministry of Education has introduced a new subject in the national curriculum and therefore issued a decree prohibiting Chinese children from playing online video games for most of the week: Xi Jinping Thought.
As the school year begins, students from elementary school to university are immersed in “Grandpa Xi. “The message couldn’t be clearer: the Chinese party state hopes to shape the minds of young people with the correct ideology, rather than distracting them with cyber fantasies. To emphasize this point, the authorities are cracking down on “Fan culture. All references to billionaire actress Zhao Wei have been deleted from the Internet.
Initially, the supervision of the gorgeous Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma was cancelled, and it quickly developed into attack On technology platforms-including platforms that provide online games like Tencent.
Now, as the movement accelerates, it uses some images from the Mao era. Accompanied by the cult of personality, efforts have been made to establish a combat commitment to “struggle” with enemies at home and abroad, as well as the “rectification” movement. Instill socialist values and combat decadence.The authorities are also challenging Extravagant remuneration Very common in the entertainment industry. In a more sinister way, they called for a boycott of what the government calls weak male celebrities.
What many foreign investors don’t understand is that the regulatory blow to wipe out $1 trillion from China’s stock market goes far beyond controlling digital monopolies and forcing delivery companies to pay more wages to gig workers. It can be said that Xi Jinping is unleashing political power that has not seen the light in decades. In a widely published article, a left-wing blogger named Li Guangman wrote that China is in a “Deep revolution. ”
Just over half a century ago, Mao Zedong launched an anti-“Capitalist roaders“He believes that the party hijacked his revolution to restore the old society.
Xi is Attack actual capitalistsSome of them are party members, such as horses, as a symbol of the disparity between the rich and the poor. Billionaires are being squeezed by charitable donations to help the rural poor left behind by China’s rapid growth. Alibaba has pledged to donate USD 15.5 billion to charities by 2025.
Some of them are related to raw power. Mao tried to destroy his Communist Party—”Bombing the headquarters!” He instructed his young Red Guard fanatics—to protect his legacy.Many Chinese experts believe that Xi Jinping is laying the foundation for his stay in office Indefinitely.
However, there is a key difference. The Cultural Revolution was a bottom-up movement that aroused public anger against the establishment. In the end, the rival Red Guard factions bombed each other with machine guns, mortars, and tanks, and Mao had to bring the army to restore order.
Xi Jinping’s revolution is top-down: the last thing he wants is Chaos on the street.
So what does he want to do? As my Bloomberg colleague Malcolm Scott reported, The economic future imagined by Xi Jinping Zhejiang Province is one of the wealthiest regions in China (where income is close to that of Southern Europe) and a hotbed of private enterprises. Zhejiang is also Xi’s power base; before he was promoted to a higher position in Beijing, he was the party secretary there.
Evidence from Zhejiang shows that Xi Jinping is not Mao Zedong when it comes to economic issues. He wants to redirect the energy of entrepreneurs instead of eliminating them as a class. The focus is on state control. Xi Jinping focuses on manufacturing rather than online services, and labor rather than capital. The country is expected to have a greater say in setting the prices of goods and services and how to distribute profits. The latest batch of corporate earnings reports is full of Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” slogan. Xi Jinping also did not fully accept Mao Zedong’s egalitarianism.In terms of welfare, his senior deputies are closer to neoliberals than socialists; in their view, only alms to the poor Promote laziness.
As for the cult of personality, Mao Zedong is completely different. The historian Frank Dikötter wrote that in its heyday, the need to cover Mao Zedong’s little red book with plastic forced toy factories to reduce production, and the production of billions of Mao Zedong badges ran out of aluminum in the country. Material supply.
Nevertheless, as economist He pointed out that the last time hundreds of millions of Chinese students were allowed to hold a person’s book was in the Mao Zedong era. At least in this sense, the Cultural Revolution is still going on.
