I watched the video of Xi's speech during his visit to San Francisco titled: "Xi Jinping on U.S.-China relations" in November. One of the most interesting things he said:
> Our achievements, however great, would be very small when divided by 1.4 billion. But a problem, however small, would be huge when multiplied by 1.4 billion.
To me this gives insight into Xi's way of thinking (and presumably his party). A problem, however small, means to be talking about problems of the individual - multiplied.
Xi may have unintentionally highlighted the fundamental difference between American and Chinese systems in a meeting intended to bridge the gaps.
I wonder if it's really wise for the CIA to be publicly saying they rebuilt their spy network. That seems very likely to trigger redoubled efforts in spy hunting, whereas if they had just said nothing, perhaps Beijing would still believe they had fully wiped out the spy network in 2012.
What if they said that after planting false trails or setting up people to spefically cause purges.
Witchhunts tend to be a good time for the intel guys to set up people with just rumors and whispers with far less blowback than trying to assassinate them.
> The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing
This is not unexplained. Apparently the story with Qin Gang (foreign minister) is that he got compromised and sensitive information leaked to the US through him.
If so, his case is not one of 'Stalinian purge' but one of an embarrassing national security breach.
It gets even better as the rumor is that Russia tipped off China (true tip or elaborate machination?) possibly to influence its stance on Ukraine [1]
Stalin's purges extensively utilized false accusations and show trials, so there being a plausible story for each individual disappearance/conviction doesn't make this not a purge.
Equally, it's bad reporting to paint everything a Stalinian purge without the subtlety of the possible full story, not least when Russia may be involved.
Edit: a purge as practiced by Staline was to increase and solidify his personal power. There may be a similar dynamic at play here but at least in Qin Gang's case it seems to be much more complex. Simplistic and sensationalist labels prevent us from digging deeper into the interesting bit.
They do make all the above points in the article - including that it’s hard to verify this information.
Comparing it to Stalin is pretty apt - communist party with a figure head trying to hold onto power. Seems like more than just one person vanished and it’s all under totally opaque circumstances.
If the information is difficult to verify the correct way is to be measured.
My main gripe here is the sensationalist take on complex issues, starting with the over-the-top title.
This could have been a substantive and interesting discussion...
Edit: I tried to look past the clickbaity title to get to the interesting part, which I think to find the reason for specific people being 'purged'. Alas it is apparently not possible...
The lack of information is the point. In a Western democracy, government ministers don't just go missing without any official explanation for their disappearance. (I am not suggesting that such official explanations are always true, but they at least exist.)
> The lack of information is the point. In a Western democracy...
...people aren't really used to leaving their bubble and searching for information at the source, especially when the source is a foreign culture/language/platform.
Are you sure that "lack of information" isn't just a skill issue here?
I'm sure that's a factor, but I'm talking about the lack of official statements. Maybe there have been such statements and I don't know about it – in which case, someone can hopefully link to a report of one of the statements.
"On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt, the 17th prime minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming in the sea near Portsea, Victoria. An enormous search operation was mounted in and around Cheviot Beach, but his body was never recovered."
He went for a swim and drowned. The facts of his disappearance are known and fully acknowledged insofar as anyone has been able to discover them. That's hardly an equivalent scenario to that of, e.g., Li Shangfu.
It clearly says his body was never recovered, so 'the facts of his disappearance' are not fully known, by definition.
Anyways, there's dozens of examples of presidents, prime ministers, ministers, deputy ministers, party leaders, etc., who've disappeared or died under mysterious circumstances. And that's just post WW2. Which anyone can find via a quick search online.
>Holt loved the ocean, particularly spearfishing... On 17 December 1967, while Holt was spending the weekend at Portsea, he and four companions decided to drive to Point Nepean to watch sailor Alec Rose pass through The Rip on his solo circumnavigation attempt... Holt convinced the group to stop at remote Cheviot Beach for a swim before lunch – he had spearfished there on many previous occasions, and claimed to "know this beach like the back of my hand". Because of the rough conditions, only one other person, Alan Stewart, joined Holt in the water. Stewart kept close to shore, but Holt swam out into deeper water and was seemingly caught up in a rip, eventually disappearing from view. One of the witnesses, Marjorie Gillespie, described it as "like a leaf being taken out [...] so quick and final".
He drowned. There's nothing mysterious about it. We are not living in an Agatha Christie novel.
The point here isn't just that Li Shangfu has disappeared but that the fact of his disappearance has not even been officially acknowledged. If Lloyd Austin had been missing for months, the US government would at least acknowledge this and make some kind of statement about it.
I was responding to 'The facts of his disappearance are known'.
Which is clearly not the case.
It can be supposed that the facts are known if we assume it was an entirely coincidental and unlucky day to pick for swimming in that area. But that's just a supposition. At best, an agreed upon supposition by the majority of the few hundred or thousand people who've deeply investigated the case. But that still doesn't equate to 'facts'.
We know he drowned. There are witnesses to what happened. If someone goes for a swim in the sea in rough weather, gets swept away by a current, and then is never seen again...I mean, you do the math. If you have some plausible alternative theory then let's hear it. But on the face of it, there is nothing remotely mysterious about Holt's death.
>I was responding to 'The facts of his disappearance are known'.
Not to be too pedantic, but I said "the facts of his disappearance are known...insofar as anyone has been able to discover them". That is, there is no secret cabal that has additional information about what happened. The Australian government is not concealing anything. All anyone knows is what we all know: that he went for a swim in rough weather and drowned.
People go missing/get arrested all the time. What justifies suspicions of foul play is when those disappearances are unusually concentrated in some group, e.g. politicians, and more frequent than usual for that group.
If you genuinely want to know, shouldn't you be asking 'foldr' of why it's relevant to raise the comparison?
I can't speak on their behalf since I am a different person.
See their parent comment:
> In a Western democracy, government ministers don't just go missing without any official explanation for their disappearance. (I am not suggesting that such official explanations are always true, but they at least exist.)
The thing that's flying over your head is that the people preventing it from being measured are the people you're giving the benefit of the doubt because it hasn't been measured.
In such cases, any rational actor has to assume the worst about the party preventing the measurement, to prevent rewarding that behavior and to encourage honest measurements.
For what it's worth the BBC and Reuters articles on this suggest it's cracking down or corruption rather than on people leaking to the US, though I guess none of them really know.
I see it more likely the US gets a major electrical blackout right in the middle of winter due to some foreign state actors as a higher likelihood than WW3.
*Axel Springer, not to be confused with Springer Nature; I’d imagine most HN readers outside Germany would use unqualified ‘Springer’ for the latter since they’re a big publisher of academic journals/texts, but the two are unrelated.
For those who down vote this without even dare to explain why, if you did not see sin is a type of "son", it is OK. Otherwise you are piece of crap that deserves every bit of Xi's purge.
> Our achievements, however great, would be very small when divided by 1.4 billion. But a problem, however small, would be huge when multiplied by 1.4 billion.
To me this gives insight into Xi's way of thinking (and presumably his party). A problem, however small, means to be talking about problems of the individual - multiplied.
Xi may have unintentionally highlighted the fundamental difference between American and Chinese systems in a meeting intended to bridge the gaps.