
Born Red: Profile of Xi Jinping - fitzwatermellow
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/born-red
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jallmann
Did this jump out at anyone?

> he praised the creation of a holiday dedicated to the Second World War:
> “Victory Day of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese
> Aggression.”

Is explicitly calling out Japan (or other countries) typical for contemporary
Chinese propaganda? From my understanding, relations between China and Japan
are not exactly friendly, but this seems a step towards inoculating the
population with a villain-like image of Japan (if it does not exist already).
What with praising Putin vis-a-vis Ukraine, territorial disputes in the South
China Sea, and Japan's increasing offensive military capability, I hope this
isn't setting the stage for a horrific showdown in the future.

~~~
snowwrestler
China has a nasty opinion of what Japan did to them during WWII, largely
because of the nasty things that Japan did to them during WWII.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes)

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analyst74
I dislike the sensationalist title, which is not really supported in the
article. But the article itself is quite detailed, and have many interesting
insights.

While most of the issues mentioned in the article are not new, the tightening
of the Internet is quite worrisome. Based on online comments, GFW is still
passable through most VPN, although some have stopped working (banned
presumably). I hope this is just a temporary crackdown instead of a growing
trend, because it will be a serious blow to the economy and academia, and a
step toward becoming North Korea.

And back to personality cult thing, I don't think Xi enjoys as much support as
the article claimed. I mean, of course you only hear good things about him
from Chinese media, because talking badly about the leader is generally done
in private, which is the case for all the leaders before him.

~~~
muddyrivers
First, it is misinterpretation to say "personality cult thing". Xi does has
much stronger support than Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin. There have been endless
mockeries towards Hu and Jiang in the Internet. You won't find many towards
Xi. People may disagree with Xi and voice their opposition. But they won't
mock him. That is a big difference.

Xi get more accepted and supported largely because he is open to new ideas. As
mentioned in the article, Xi doesn't believe in implementing democracy in
China in present days. His stance is not because he was told so, but from his
studying and understanding of democracy and China. One might disagree with
him, but one might have to admit he does have some valid points.

Second, it is very easy to bypass GFW in China. There are many tools available
in the Internet. It requires only basic knowledge on Internet. The young
generations have no problem in browsing websites in western countries if they
really want to.

~~~
smilekzs
Someone flagkill this. All this is blatant lie.

~~~
muddyrivers
Wow. Could you provide your arguments instead of calling them lies?

~~~
smilekzs
> There have been endless mockeries towards Hu and Jiang in the Internet. You
> won't find many towards Xi. People may disagree with Xi and voice their
> opposition. But they won't mock him.

Of course you won't see people mocking him on the surface. The regime has
cracked down on pretty much all criticism on him.

> Xi get more accepted and supported largely because he is open to new ideas

This is where the hypocrisy lies. On the surface he poses to be "open" while
below the surface his regime cracks down on media and tightens up control on
videos/animation/publication. Also, propaganda on his "merits" are way over
the top -- just short of Mao's.

> it is very easy to bypass GFW in China. There are many tools available in
> the Internet. It requires only basic knowledge on Internet. The young
> generations have no problem in browsing websites in western countries if
> they really want to

Lie. GFW just attacked GitHub. And AFAIK GFW is getting harder and harder to
bypass every single day. The regime cuts off Google services (and
throttles/cuts VPN connections) for no reason every now and then even when all
you do is checking your inbox.

\---

And to you, presumably a 50-cent, [citation needed].

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dferlemann
I don't know if it's fair to compare him to Mao, as Mao's reputation is pretty
bad in the west. The general feel of this article is like: oh, he's pretty
cool, well, anti-corruption, but controlling, and take his job really
seriously, just like HITLER! Whut...

But this article has very good details though. I enjoyed reading it.

~~~
LiweiZ
Mao's reputation is mixed in mainland China, too. For more than 150 years, the
big and powerful nation state of mind and the weakness in reality stay as a
main force behind many things we see. It's a good starting point for reasoning
many issues in China. And for me as a Chinese, it's a big negative sign before
anything organically good could happen back home.

~~~
mjklin
Ask any Chinese person and they will tell you: Mao was 70% right, 30% wrong.
This is the official party line taught in schools.

~~~
LiweiZ
Well, I translated what you said into Chinese in my mind and get what those
Chinese really said. In Chinese, we often use 70% and 30% as a way to indicate
both sides exist but the 70% part comes with more weight. It's not to say that
is exactly 70%. Their original words are probably like this: 毛主席七分功，三分过。 Just
to make this expression more clearer.

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Tloewald
Off-topic: as a paying newyorker.com subscriber I resent the fact that the
_New Yorker_ uses page-covering video ads, and I resent the fact that they're
incompetently implemented even more (they're borked on mobile devices that are
zoomed or in landscape mode).

~~~
IkmoIkmo
No disagreement on crappy readability and accessibility. Never an excuse for
that, it's just dumb, bad to users and even bad for business.

But if you're implying 'shouldn't get ads' because you pay... I can get a sub
at $4 a month. Don't think that quite covers costs. So I can certainly imagine
how they'd still show me ads even if I pay and accept that. The sub is geared
not for removal of ads, but rather the option of reading more than the limited
few articles a month you can read for free. (which is extremely easy to
circumvent as they have no login system but that's another story).

~~~
Tloewald
I'm happy -- well, not incensed -- to get ads that are well-implemented.

I'm paying $4/month and purposely chose not to get a physical copy (which was
offered for free). It's depressing if I'm not covering their costs and then
some.

The New Yorker's online ads are increasingly obtrusive, including ads in the
article body that are seemingly designed to be clicked accidentally (which
doesn't benefit the advertiser).

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fbx12345
Xi's nickname is known as “慶豐包” -- qingfeng Bun

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smilekzs
To all the 50-cent trash downvoters here: you guys suck.

EDIT: funny how this get downvoted in a minute.

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Dhtrnr
In all of that text, I couldn't find why he's supposedly "china's most
authoritarian leader since Mao," other than a discussion of him trying to
limit corruption in local government, which is a massive problem in China. If
anything, this seems like a fluff piece trying keep in step with the "evil,
scary China" narrative.

~~~
contingencies
_the "evil, scary China" narrative_

A friend is studying journalism. Last week he told me about 90% of western
media on China follows that narrative, and around 30% of international
headlines in recent months have been about China. Sad. Then again, media in
China on the west is not exactly impartial and well researched, either.

~~~
ninjayi
I kinda start to think is this article related to people Xi trying to crack
down in China. Very similar to pervious Bloomberg stories, the sources and
timings are very suspicious. Not saying the story is false or anything.

~~~
kylebrown
Not sure if paid shill or just biased?

The Bloomberg article was about the wealth amassed by Xi's extended family.[1]
This New Yorker piece cites an article by Geremie Barme which points out that
of the 48 highest-profile corruption cases, none were targeted at "second-
generation reds" (aka princelings)[2]. Note that the very high profile case of
corrupt princeling Bo Xilai was just prior to Xi's appointment. The ostensible
anti-corruption crusade embarked on afterward was targeted at scapegoat
officials "from ‘commoner’ 平民 families." Indeed, Barme's article quotes
numerous princeling Party officials extolling the inherent virtue of
"bureaucrats from the Red Second Generation" and their naturally-born
resistance to vice and corruption (Bo Xilai is an exceedingly rare anomaly).
Instead, the real danger is "Bureaucrats who come from extreme poverty in
youth easily fall prey to vile excesses of corruption, whoring and gambling."

> _It goes with saying that, in the murky corridors of Communist power, an
> impressive number of party gentry progeny, or the offspring of the Mao-era
> nomenclatura, have been implicated in corrupt practices, but word has it
> that, like the well-connected elites of other climes, they’ve enjoyed a
> ‘soft landing ': being discretely relocated, shunted into delicate
> retirement or quietly ‘redeployed’. It’s all very comfy; and it’s all very
> much business as usual._

1\. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-29/xi-
jinping...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-29/xi-jinping-
millionaire-relations-reveal-fortunes-of-elite)

2\. [https://www.thechinastory.org/2014/10/tyger-tyger-a-
fearful-...](https://www.thechinastory.org/2014/10/tyger-tyger-a-fearful-
symmetry/)

