In his 70s, Xi Jinping is suddenly wearing glasses. Or rather, is suddenly caught wearing glasses. This datum seems to show that despite the enormous state apparatus of fact-hiding over which the Chinese dictator presides—an apparatus now being brought to bear on the task of veiling the truth about his vision—Xi is not invariably opposed to clear sight.
Our publisher passed along a report by Aric Chen about how the Chinese dictator “Wants You to Un-See” the fact that he wore glasses in Pyongyang, where he had gone to firm up his relationship with fellow totalitarian dictator Kim Jong Un.
Chen asserts that what the CCP censorship shows is not optics management but “the architecture of a personality cult.” Are these two things mutually exclusive? Maybe managing appearances is part of that “architecture.”
“On June 8, Xi Jinping slipped on a pair of thin-rimmed spectacles to watch a song-and-dance performance at the Pyongyang Gymnasium. By June 9, Beijing’s propaganda machinery was busy scrubbing the frames” that had been captured in footage taken by the Korean Central News Agency. Xinhua and CCTV footage of the same event was edited in such a way as to prevent any glimpse of the spectacles. And “Chinese social media searches return nothing.” (The above image is from a Taiwanese network, Chinese Television System.)
Perhaps, then, Xi is not the everlasting and invulnerable superman with socialist characteristics that his pudgy morphology, marred by only two or three shrugged-off strokes, had hitherto implied. In addition to being insecure about his image, he is mortal. Perhaps his regime will also one day come to an end.
Also see:
CH52: “Xi Jinping’s rare appearance wearing glasses during his North Korea visit raises health concerns”
