Skepticism over Xi Jinping’s Call for “Sharp Criticism”
Recent comments by incoming president Xi Jinping, in which he said the Party should tolerate “sharp criticism,” have drawn a lot of interest on Weibo and elsewhere. While the comments appear to show a kinder and gentler response to dissent in China, many have reacted with skepticism. From ...
« Back to Article
« Back to Article
This is a case of “You fool me once…” It is whether Chinese people will fall for it again. I am sure some still will. Let’s just watch the consequences and then decide. So not holding my breath.
This is reminiscent of Mao Zedong’s siren song about a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending in 1956. The result was that within a year, the Party-state came crashing down on even the mildest of criticisms, and in fact on many within the intelligentsia who had shrewdly kept silent but were still “ferreted out” by their work units for denunciation as Rightists in order to meet Mao’s quota of a certain percentage of “enemies of the people” in every work unit.