A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.
CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”
According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.
Probably because most other countries aren’t under the justified suspicion that China is for directly repressing speech it doesn’t like. It’s a conspiracy theory but it’s not at all absurd, it is plainly the most reasonable explanation for what is happening.
When was the last time this was asked about anyone in Saudi Arabia? Or Israel? Or…
All the fucking time. Holy shit, do you just not pay attention to international news? The Saudis are constantly fucking with internal dissidents.
Israel doesn’t kill journalists in secret. They do it in the open and claim it was an accident. There’s a lot of reporting on it (ironically?)
But they aren’t front-page news.
Israeli killings of journos very much are. The Saudis, it’s just expected.