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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      8 hours ago

      I had the most hilarious discussion with a Tankie about China a while back. They refused to accept that China is pretty much communist in name only. I pointed out that they had billionaires, privately-owned companies, a stock exchange and private property, meaning you can earn capital in China.

      The Tankie actually said something on the lines of, “If you would JUST READ MARX you would know that earning capital is a fundamental cornerstone of communism!”

      • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        The Tankie actually said something on the lines of, “If you would JUST READ MARX you would know that earning capital is a fundamental cornerstone of communism!”

        I’m a communist who doesn’t want to call China a communist country, so I don’t really agree with the person that you were talking to, but your second paragraph does show you haven’t researched communism or its history. The debate of whether societies need to undergo capitalist capital accumulation first to enter communism is about as old as communism, and the history of communism is full of examples of this. It’s the ideological reason why the Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party split into two wings: the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, the former believing that the Russian Empire had to undergo capitalism first in other to become communist, and the latter wanting to implement socialism to the primitive almost feudalist Russian empire. Some similar split happened more discreetly inside the Communist Party of China, with Mao implementing socialism directly to the extremely underdeveloped Chinese society, and later Deng Xiaoping opting for the more market-socialism (known now to many as "socialism with Chinese characteristics).

        So you may or may not agree whether china is communist, but from your comment it’s clear that you’re very oblivious to the historical and ideological reasons for the argument as to whether china is or isn’t a socialist country and whether they’re on the path to it. It’s good to discuss things and to have opinions, but please get informed before dismissing other people’s opinions on topics they’ve probably dedicated more time than you to studying.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          16 minutes ago

          If the Bolsheviks didn’t believe that Russia had to undergo capitalism then why did they implement, and I quote Lenin, state capitalism.

          Also there’s already a term for socialists who tolerate capitalism, it’s social democrats. Maybe the “democrat” thing is the issue MLMs have with the whole concept, not the tolerating capitalism part.

      • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 hours ago

        Private property as in land or a house? Because that’s not how it works in China. You can only buy it for a specific set of time. Besides that it is indeed just a capitalistic country with an oppressive state.

      • JustARaccoon@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        I mean you can still have private property under communism, it’s the capital making property that’s more owned by the workers themselves, but you can still own things under communism.

        Similarly, you can earn capital under communism too, it’s just that the tools for earning said capital aren’t owned by corporations under corporations under CEOs under the 1%. It’s not a cornerstone for sure, but it’s not like communism is anti capital and growth and owning things

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        something on the lines of

        Any time someone describes something that happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they are misrepresenting what happened 100% of the time.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Hahaha, are you saying that because it was you on the other end of that discussion? I know you love China so much that you are willing to praise their genocide of Uyghur people.

          Maybe you could distill the theory for us a bit so we can decipher why “socialism” is producing hundreds of billionaires.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            Hahaha, are you saying that because it was you on the other end of that discussion?

            Not to my knowledge, but there’s no way for anyone to know what incident it’s referencing so it could be any conversation they had with anyone, or made up whole cloth. I say this exact thing every time I see someone claim something happened on the fediverse without providing a link 1 2 3, and I haven’t been wrong yet. And that’s not really surprising, why wouldn’t someone provide a link to something that made the other side look bad, unless it didn’t actually play out the way they claim?

            For example, when you say that I “praise the genocide of Uyghur people,” that is a lie, and it should be obvious that it’s a lie from the fact that you didn’t provide a link to it.

            I’d be happy to have a good faith discussion regarding China’s economic policies and how they relate to socialism. Just not with someone who I already know is going to lie, misrepresent whatever I say, and act in bad faith, as I know you will.

            • barsquid@lemmy.world
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              3 minutes ago

              From the position of your acceptance of Uyghur genocide and pretending that China is anywhere near the left, it’s astonishing you are comfortable accusing anyone else of bad faith.

              There’s simply no way to have a serious discussion with you regarding anything about China. That’s why you have chosen the lemmy.ml instance, it is a hivemind of like thinkers all sheltered from the truth by fragile admins.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Reminds me of the Clinton Death List, where anyone tangential to Bill and Hilary who had a bad turn was allegedly victimized to cover up an even more insidious crime.