I think it's safe to assume that China is now ruled by a totalitarian dictator, even if we haven't yet seen clear actions taken to that effect. There isn't a person in that "Congress" who isn't thinking "that will happen to me if I protest."
I feel bad for young Chinese people who were born after the economy opened up. Can't shake the feeling that the world that they've known is about to be turned upside down, and not for the better.
Increasingly hard to go back to business as usual with China. And I'm not even sure Xi wants to go back to business as usual.
Xi has a place on his priority table for the real economy and ordinary folk and those in abject poverty and proper ecological stewardship. Gone are the late nights of celebratory indulgence to excess juicing the spreadsheet numbers in immitative unsustainable businesscult imprinted from the west
There is a nuanced point to be made for Xi's alleged concern for the welfare of ordinary folk rather than the elite, but that's not it.
If you're feeling generous toward the world's most powerful autocrat, you can extend the benefit of the doubt that perhaps Xi's policies may turn out to benefit China's poorest and the ecology. But there is no doubt that Xi's anti-vax zero-covid policy has inflicted significant damage to the economy of China's middle class.
Xi has also consolidated political power for himself without setting up any form of succession. He's overseen construction of the most advanced surveillance society that has ever existed. The Chinese people enjoy less freedom now than they did twenty years ago. Maybe history will prove him right, but the historical record for these policies aren't encouraging for China.
It is a reminder how opaque Chinese politics is that a former Politburo Standing Committee member can be dragged off stage without comment. Imagine trying to do that to Trump or Obama!
Between purge and medical emergency, a purge of some sort seems more likely since the censors got involved. If it wasn't for show it'd be weird to do it in the middle of the public show too. It'd be a very powerful demonstration if that is what it was intended to be.
Easy on the hyperbole. It is extremely odd, and likely he was removed against his own volition, but he also could have been an 80yo man having a moment of confusion. Eg: Trying to take Xi's papers while the man on his left was handing Hu's folder to the 'Aide'.
It is curious we don't see the minutes leading up to the event. I've looked for the entire broadcast(after foreign media allowed in) and have only found the one version that begins after they were already trying to get him out of the chair.
Anyone have a link to an uncurated video containing the moments before the 'Aides' showed up?
That is better by 1.5 minutes preceding the prior footage, but the commotion has already commenced when this video starts. Curiously, probably circumstantial, Hu reaching for Xi's paper has been omitted from this video.
Edit: Despite all the foreign media present, we are only seeing clips. Has the entire event been posted online?
The US equivalent would be getting booted off of Twitter & denied friendly access via press.
Hu was apparently upset that the list of candidates was not what he had expected, since the session was to hold a simple yes/no to the entire list.
He wanted to check his list against Xi's list which is why he kept reaching for it. Apparently even his son was booted off along with various allies, like vice-premier of China. It seems it was indeed a surprise to Xi and company & a snap decision by Xi to remove Hu was made.
Lei's real talk on YT is an informed resource by a Chinese critic of CPC. NYTimes article today seems based on her (uncredited) work published earlier on YT:
Communism happened to him. There's a worrying confusion in the west right now in a certain part of the population. People have completely forgotten or wilfully ignore everything we know about the evil every communist system descends imto.
West and especially the young people in the west need to wake up. No system is perfect, but that is no reason to adapt a system we know for certain to be worse.
How much effort HJT issue is being dissected by western MSM is a good reflection of how sad state of PRC watching is in the west. And of course it could _only_ be a power move, because the alternative that XJP is a selfless good boi who wants addle old man to go nap, despite bad optics, can't be fathomed.
