donsurber.blogspot.com CNN ignores Trump's role in Red China's turmoil
Richard McGregor's new book, "Xi Jinping: The Backlash," was published by Penguin Australia on Tuesday. He wrote a 966-word essay for CNN, "The backlash is growing against Xi Jinping in China and around the world."
Curiously, that world does not include President Donald John Trump whose tariffs on Red China's exports to the USA are causing pain for the communist regime.
McGregor did not mention the American president or his tariffs, which have applied pressure on Red China's fragile economy.
Given CNN's stalker-level obsession with President Donald John Trump, this is an odd omission. Then again, big trouble in big China is a good thing, so why credit the man most responsible?
Instead, McGregor gave us a narrative of spontaneous eruption against Red China.
He wrote, "The backlash abroad against President Xi Jinping's China, at least in developed nations, has spread rapidly in the last year.
"Some countries, like Australia and Canada, feel patronized and bullied. Neighbors worry they are being marginalized. Advanced industrial nations, especially Germany and South Korea, see China coming at them like an unstoppable, oncoming train."
America -- Red China's largest market -- is invisible in this report.
President Donald John Trump triggered this sudden surge a year ago when he began slapping Chairman Xi upside the head with tariffs. CNN denounced those tariffs as irresponsible. No one wins a trade war and all that muck.
Now that we are winning this trade war with Red China, CNN is all trade war? What trade war?
McGregor's amnesia aside, he did provide some insights into the political turmoil inside Red China.
He wrote, "Forced to lay low initially because of the dangers of challenging him outright, Xi's critics at home have begun to find their voice. They have been outspoken mainly on economic policy, but the deeper undercurrents of their criticisms are unmistakable.
"The sons of former top leaders, revered scholars who guided China's economic miracle, frustrated private entrepreneurs and academics furious about Xi's unrelenting hardline -- all have complained in multiple public forums, in speeches, in online postings and in widely circulated essays at home and offshore, about Xi's policies and style."
In the name of fighting corruption, Chairman Xi has purged hundreds of public officials and thousands of their friends and allies from the state. They are persona non grata.
McGregor cited an anonymous China-based businessman, who said, "Xi has destroyed millions of people in the elite who now all hold a personal grudge against him. These people are not a bunch of uneducated peasants from the sticks in Henan. They had skin in the game."
Shades of Mao's cultural revolution. Communist purges are unpleasant. 'Tis the nature of centralized power.
The column ended, "China's slowing economy and rapidly declining demographics can obviously be leveraged to argue in favor of maintaining tight authoritarian controls. But they are much more likely to work against Xi in future. The same goes for China's tightening fiscal situation.
"Beijing's ability to throw money at every problem, like bailing out cash-strapped local governments, will only get harder. In other words, by the time of the next party congress, due in late 2022, the issue of succession should return with a vengeance."
I don't know what McGregor meant by "declining demographics" -- an aging populace, perhaps? -- but I do know what he means by slowing economy.
Chairman Xi bet against Donald John Trump.
Never bet against Donald John Trump because you cannot win.
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