A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.

CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”

According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.

  • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    So your stance is essentially “real communism has never been tried”? Technically correct, I suppose, but what really matters is the actions of people who claim to be communists. I refer back to my first post in this conversation where I said “insofar as those labels are used today”. I can’t think of a single practical implementation of political systems by these self-proclaimed communists that makes me think “this is what Marx would have wanted”.

    • Edie [it/it/its/its/itself, she/her/her/hers/herself]@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      No, his stance is that Communism, or as I believe Marx called it upper stage communism, has not been achieved. Lower stage communism‒or socialism‒has, as seen in China and the USSR. Both of these are/were communist, as in they are/were led by Marxist/communist parties working towards Communism.

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        If you truly believe they are “working towards communism”, I don’t think any amount of evidence or differing interpretations of the data will sway your faith.

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        Then I suggest you explain why.

        Because they are profoundly authoritarian, and become more so over time. You’re posting in a thread about China’s leader erasing a contrary voice from existence. I’m not sure how much clearer this could all be.

          • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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            2 years ago

            I have asked, repeatedly, for mechanical analysis. Any change in structure, drop in approval rates, anything.

            This is rapidly devolving into bad-faith pedantry, but fine. I would point to the horrifically botched early response to COVID; ongoing suppression of protests on June 4th of every year; the crushing of dissent in Hong Kong; Xi’s very public sidelining of Hu; the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang; mass surveillance; Xi’s undoing of term limits; and the list goes on, but that should be enough to tide you over for now.

            • Edie [it/it/its/its/itself, she/her/her/hers/herself]@lemmy.ml
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              2 years ago

              This is rapidly devolving into bad-faith pedantry, but fine

              No it isn’t.

              Cowbee has asked multiple times for you to expand upon what you stated such that it can be engaged with. Much of what you have stated is vibes, it doesn’t contain any specifics. You feel that Marx would have been this way, you feel that china is authoritarian, none of it engages with reality, none of it contains any sources. If asking for this is bad-faith pedantry, then no discussion can be had.

              • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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                2 years ago

                Perhaps I should have used the term “sealioning” instead of bad-faith pedantry. When you come at people with trite gems like this one,

                abolition of term limits, but you don’t explain how you think that goes against democratic control and operation

                you make it very difficult for others to believe you’re interested in a genuine conversation rather that endlessly bogging down your interlocutor with minutiae and winning a war of attrition. Here’s a hard source for you. Enjoy, because I’ve finished wasting my time here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

                Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”, and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings. […] It has been described as “incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate”.