Geez, Xi!

Maaate, comrade!?

Further to the short list of vernacular expressions in Oriental Wisdom, a provocative addition was spotted yesterday in The New York Times, in a report on widespread social media push-back in China against the regime’s relentless positivity, upbeat messaging and online control of regime criticism.

The Chinese economy is not floating everyone’s boat, with official youth unemployment of 18%, and about 200 million people, one-quarter of the working population, engaged in ‘flexible’ employment or a vast gig economy. Prospects for their rosy (communist?) futures are dimming.

Subsequent generational de-motivation and disengagement from the official ethos of hard work and social progress was mentioned previously in the tang ping (lying flat) human response. Apparently accompanied more recently by exponential increases in pessimistic and even subversive social media posts, despite official censorship. 

And it’s getting personal with burgeoning online targeting of Chairman (of Everything) Xi Jinping, referred to simply as ‘He’, with the following epithet:  yichou wannian translates as “to leave a stench for 10,000 years” or to be remembered in infamy forever. Younger human cogs in the Chinese socialist-capitalist wheel are not happy!

Xi is General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, President of the People’s Republic of China (in his third term since limit was abolished), Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Director of the Central Commissions of: Financial and Economic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Comprehensively Deepening Reforms, National Security. The Chairman of Everything moniker is not an exaggeration.

The honorific title of Lingxiu (Leader) which was previously reserved for Hua Guofeng and Mao Zedong, has now been conferred by Xi on himself, along with Core Leader. His book of wisdom, like Mao’s, is available to inspire the Chinese people. The Hitlerian military parade inspection by the paramount leader, solo in his limousine drive-past, exemplifies the state personality cult. 

Chinese punters are not all buying in, and seem justified in assigning him paramount responsibility for their woes and lowered expectations.