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Posted via Cindy Carter | July 19, 2024
The recently concluded third plenum of the CCP resulted in a final communiqué acknowledging the existing economic, geopolitical and ideological dangers and the need for more systemic reforms, although few details were (yet) provided. However, propagandists promoted the narrative of “Xi as a reformer. “in Chinese state media. Some claims, adding that Xi visited Xiaogang village, the “cradle of remodeling,” in Anhui province in 1978, have sparked disbelief on Chinese social media. The rejection of such glorifications of Xi’s reshaping symbol appears to have led to the removal of at least one comment in state media and censorship in the form of deleted comments and the extensive filtering of comments on social media posts.
On Monday, the opening day of the Third Plenum, state media heavily promoted “Xi the Reformer,” a 10,000-word observation via state media Xinhua that praised Xi Jinping as a wonderful reformer on par with Deng Xiaoping. From Joséphine Ma in the South China Morning Post:
The commentary, titled “Xi Jinping the Reformer,” claims that [Xi] is the 2,000 “reform measures” implemented over the past decade. These ranged from poverty eradication, urban-rural progress and the fight against corruption, to support for business and innovation, to a “green revolution”, a word that refers to China’s rise as a leader in new power cars and other green technologies.
[…] He also spoke at length with Xi to Supreme Leader Deng, saying that both were carrying out the project to achieve China’s modernization. However, he also pointed out the differences, saying Xi’s reforms were more than economic and aimed to turn “the other Chinese into a new era,” filled with national pride. [Source]
The comment, which appears to have been first published in early March at the legislative and consultative meetings of the two sessions, was reportedly removed from Xinhua’s official online page and is no longer available on Baidu this week. Some have speculated that the comment might simply have been removed due to its exaggerated claims and the potential for generating backlash among already skeptical social media users.
A highly promoted hagiographic video through Xinhua, “Leading a New Journey,” also sparked a huge backlash after its posting on Weibo on July 15. The comment segment below the video was flooded with skeptical responses to his claims that a young Xi Jinping had visited Xiaogang village in Anhui province in 1978 – long before the village’s decollectivization experiment was publicly revealed in 1980 – in order to study agricultural reform. Although the video was not removed, it was subject to comment filtering and mass removal of critical comments. The video also drew complaints on foreign social media sites such as X. CDT editors compiled some of X’s Chinese comments, some of which are translated below:
@whyyoutouzhele: Why not just claim that Xi Jinping invented and implemented the family duties system?
@ThomasYoung198: Since you don’t have a wonderful reforming record to boast about, let’s make it up!
@speedupxjp: In the beginning, Xi Jinping created the Heavens and the Earth.
@wuyuehua1776: It was only in a Xinhua News article on June 28, 1980, that we learned that [Xiaogang’s] excellent harvest is due to decollectivization. Before that, the secret contract and the resolution to divide the land were a well-kept secret. So what might Xi have investigated in late 1978?
@lanniaoyouke: Even before the crop effects of family rights formulas were available, there were studies on them.
@Pledgeme2414475: He traveled back in time. [Chinese]
It is not entirely unlikely that Xi, as the son of a recently rehabilitated senior cadre and one of the most prominent voices for Party reform, stopped at Xiaogang early on, but state media reports on the scale of Xi’s inspection of Xiaogang village in 2016 did. Not to mention it was supposedly a return stopover. Xiaogang’s history as the “cradle of reform” is deeply rooted in the history of the CPP. Xiaogang houses a museum committed to its role in agricultural reform, and the village’s history is cited in state media. According to the well-known story, an organization of 18 farmers from Xiaogang – having noticed that their village suffered greatly during the Great Famine of the late 1950s and early 1960s, a crisis they blamed on the rigid communal formula – signed a secret contract to decollectivize and subdivide their usual agricultural lands in an effort to improve harvests and provide more food for themselves and their families. This secret contract would pave the way for the “domestic contractual duty formula”, a key component of Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up policy.
Foreign Policy’s James Palmer reported on the inherent inconsistencies in the “Leading a New Journey” video and discussed the rationale for Party propagandists and state media preference for polishing Xi’s reformist symbol in the technique for the Third Plenum:
Xi has claimed in the past that he went as a student to Anhui to examine the village that brought about the aforementioned formula, a series of reforms later followed across China that moved the country away from collectivization. But as political scientist Joshua Eisenman has shown, the story of the local formula in Anhui is largely a propaganda invention that Deng used to enforce his political changes; Xi’s is probably made up too. Today, the documentary says, Xi has “taken up the baton of history” to push for reforms.
The explanation why the drums are being beaten so loudly is that the party and the general public are concerned that Xi has abandoned Deng’s plans for reform and opening up, returning to the top-down mentality and Maoist concepts of It was before the reforms. Deng’s efforts have advanced life in China, and the idea that his strategy could be reversed scares most people.
[…] State media seeks to reassure the public about Xi’s willingness to carry out reforms. This year’s economic buzzword is “new quality productive forces,” or the use of generation to produce breakthroughs that will give China must-have geopolitical benefits over other powers. Coupled with Xi’s historically Marxist concentration on production (and abandonment of past attempts to steer China’s economy toward intake rather than production), Third Plenum announcements will most likely focus on growth driven by generations.
Another the farmers who signed the mythical secret contract. so many years ago.
On Thursday, at the end of the Third Plenum, state media published the final communiqué of the meetings. Unsurprisingly, the document reiterated the Party’s position on various ideologically demanding situations and issues and focused on the overall direction of policies rather than the main points of their implementation. Initial research by Bill Bishop of Sinocism noted that the document did not indicate any significant changes underway: “The communiqué highlights progress in the comprehensive deepening of reform since the Third Plenum in 2013 and, once returned, makes clear that leaders think they are on the right track. “Following the People’s Daily newsletter, Manoj Kewalramani called it “strong help for China’s political leadership and Xi Jinping’s leadership. “For example, he tells us that the Central Committee issued a “very positive assessment of the good fortune and achievements” of reformist cadres since then. the new era. “
CDT editors who tracked online censorship during the plenum noted that Weibo hashtags similar to those at the event were tightly controlled and that search effects were limited to content posted through verified users. In addition, comment filtering has been enabled for Weibo accounts such as the People’s Daily, CCTV. Some comments on social media in reaction to the final communique criticized it as lukewarm or meaningless, devoid of content or even as a sign that China had entered an “ancient waste period. “in X he described it as “a draught in the age of garbage. “
Although Xi Jinping presided over the final assembly of the Third Plenum and the unveiling of the communiqué, his lack of prior visibility in the plenary unleashed unfounded rumors of political infighting, illness or even poor health. serious like a stroke. In Phil Cunningham’s CCTV Follies, it was noted that at the plenary session, state broadcaster CCTV addressed Xi’s low profile by broadcasting a variety of content that goes beyond “Xi’s Great,” adding long-running news reports such as “Xi’s Time”, “Xi’s Vision”, “Xi’s Focus”. ”. » and “The story of Xi”.
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