Is it possible to overstate the scope and severity of the despotism of Xi Jinping?
Maybe, but doing so would be difficult given everything that Xi has done and permitted and encouraged during the dozen or so years of his iron-fisted control of the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party.
It would be difficult given all the murders, torture, and imprisonment of dissidents and members of groups like the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, and Falun Gong; the extinguishing of the last vestiges of political freedom and democracy in Hong Kong; the increased censorship and surveillance of everybody and especially of members of targeted groups; the increased interference with markets; the increased interference with religion; the increased interference with education; the chronic grabbing of the resources and territory of other countries, near and far; the transnational harassments and kidnappings; the ceaseless military intimidation of Taiwan for saying out loud that it’s a country.
Xi is cunning, ambitious, vicious, and patient.
He is not something entirely new on the Chinese scene. The People’s Republic of China has changed over the years, and the successors to Mao Zedong are at least not guilty of the very worst of Mao’s manipulations and mass slaughters. But whatever their particular policies and reforms or pseudo-reforms, Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping are all dictators cut from the same cloth. Being not-Mao still leaves plenty of scope for repression and other monstrous conduct.
There’s that word, “dictator,” which President Biden publicly called Xi in San Francisco, in “a departure from the smiles and warm handshake the two had exchanged just hours earlier,” says Newsweek. Newsweek’s head-shaking over this supposed slipup by the gaff-prone and gibberish-prone Biden was typical of news media in this country.
What departure? Biden didn’t say that Xi is an evil dictator, a mean dictator, or even an impolite dictator. Just that in point of fact he is a dictator, which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “one holding complete autocratic control” or “ruling in an absolute and often oppressive way.” Have the people of China and the world been laboring under the impression that Xi is a democrat and libertarian?
Dictators often dislike being called dictators, since the word often implies disapproval. But if calling Xi Jinping a “dictator” were the worst that any of the seven billion people of earth ever had to say about him, it would be even easier for Xi to advance his dictatorial agenda, which he takes pains to obscure.
There are dictators and there are dictators. It’s a category. Knowing that Xi belongs to the category is only the beginning of grasping what he’s up to.
“Dictator? Xi Jinping Is Much Worse,” in the view of Kok Bayraq, a Uyghur, writing for Bitter Winter (November 23, 2023).
U.S. president Joe Biden continues to call Xi Jinping a dictator. Although the word seems to upset the Chinese side, it should not fundamentally affect the bilateral relationship. This is because the word “dictator” does not fully express, and even hides to some extent, the inherent brutality of Xi Jinping…
In addition to committing genocide against the Uyghurs in the occupied land of East Turkistan…and depriving his own people (all 1.5 billion) of human rights, Xi Jinping threatens the world with his economic, political, technological, and military power. He uses his disgraceful regime as an example under the name of the multipolar world and is trying to spread it….
Xi Jinping can be more aptly compared to dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, but only partially. While their purposes, slogans, and threats were clear, Xi’s are vague. For example, Hitler wanted to destroy the Jewish people, whom he considered an inferior race. Xi Jinping says that he will cure the Uyghurs of being Muslims, which he considers a mental illness. Stalin declared that prisoners were sent to camps as enemies of the system or the state, and he did not hide the fact that he punished them. Xi Jinping will not stop masquerading his Uyghur death camps as “vocational training schools.” Mao declared America to be imperialist and announced that he would destroy it if he became powerful enough. Conversely, Xi Jinping has told Joe Biden that the planet is large enough for America and China and that they may thrive in the world together, all while he is doing everything he can to tear America from its position in every international institution. China stands against a free world on all international fronts, from Kosovo to Ukraine and from Burma to Palestine. With such records, Xi Jinping with his cunning is worse than the worst dictators in history….
Xi may feel proud of being called a dictator. He [may feel] that his power and superiority have been accepted and that his guilt has been alleviated. We should consider the reaction of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman to the word “dictator” a diplomatic courtesy and something mostly intended for Western audiences.
Xi’s tactics overlap those of Mao, Stalin, and Hitler a little more than Kok Bayraq suggests. Hitler was publicly deceptive about many of his aims. Mao could be deviously unclear, and the Maoist regime sought to “reeducate” many of those it imprisoned.
The allusion in the last sentence quoted is to the Ministry’s Mao Ning, who, perhaps taking her cue from Newsweek et al., called Biden’s statement that Xi is a dictator an “extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation.” The assertion exhibits standard features of Chinese propaganda. Lying. Projection.
