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Is it Xi Jinping or Peng Lifa who dared to defy him?

“Braveman” and “Hero” were considered confidential information and were subject to account deletion and suspension for anyone using them. He was dubbed the “New Tank Man” before censors removed it. This refers to a lone protester standing in front of oncoming tanks during the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. We don’t know the tankman’s name, but thanks to research by many websites that watch China, we do know the name of the Sithon Bridge protester.

Surprisingly, regime cheerleader Hu Xijin is a former editor. global timesthought it necessary to tweet that “China is now stable, especially its capital, Beijing.”

figurecredit:Andrew Dyson

President Xi Jinping is sometimes called China’s “powerful ruler.” And indeed, this week’s party convention is expected to appoint him to his five-year term for the third straight term. To do this, he needed to break the party’s constitutional rule limiting a leader to his second term. This rule was put in place to prevent the emergence of another Mao who ruled unchecked for life while unleashing the chaos and mass death of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Xi also abolished another constraint, the post-Mao collective leadership system. He was already recognized all over the world as the most powerful person on earth. Now, as the new Mao Zedong, he seeks to entrench himself as dangerously unrestrained and unchallenged.

why? One word: Survival. Xi grew up as the privileged son of a party leader. Revolutionary hero who saved Mao Zedong’s life. He also happened to be a political libertarian. He befriended the Dalai Lama and later opposed the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

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But when Xi was nine years old, his father became embroiled in factional intrigue in Mao’s court during the madness of the Cultural Revolution. Xi Zhongxun was purged, his family dispersed, and his daughter murdered. By the age of 13, young Xi was beaten, degraded, and vilified on stage as a “class enemy”. His mother took part in humiliating him to protect herself.

Xi Jingpin was imprisoned many times and made to work as a rural farm worker for six years at the age of 15. He lived for years in a flea-infested cave. “I was very lonely,” he later admitted. “I thought a lot about whether I should live or die.”

But rather than turn his back on this gigantic regime, Mr. Xi chose to survive by joining it. According to friends who knew him as a teenager, he decided the party was “a system for survival”. His father’s life story taught him that lesson and it was etched into his mind. “

He rejected his father’s liberal worldview, hero-worshipping Mao, and eventually became as ruthless and oppressive as Mao himself. , has been humiliated.

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Kevin Rudd wrote in The Journal of the United States, “If he resigns, he is fully aware that he and his family may face retribution from his successor.” diplomatic issue“Therefore, Mr. Xi is likely to lead the country for the rest of his life.”

In other words, he seeks greater and greater power out of fear for his own survival. , hinted at this. You can see cowsheds and people blowing out the heat and cold. “

A cowshed? This is a reference to the Cultural Revolution when the Red Guards turned cowsheds into prisons and torture chambers. Xi Jinping is like the dictator Winston Churchill had in mind.

Xi may be strong. But who are the real heavyweights? Peng Lifa and Xi Jinping? Brave protesters who risk their lives for their principles, or terrifying megalomaniacs who dare not let people speak out?

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Is it Xi Jinping or Peng Lifa who dared to defy him?

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