2022-08-24 14:14:14
Xi Jinping’s Radical Secrecy
Almost anything China does has global fallout these days, but its internal debates and its decision-making processes are almost entirely hidden.
I often heard the refrain from Chinese officials “You don’t understand China!” when they complained about this or that article of mine. My stock reply was: “
You don’t want me to understand China!”
Under Xi, the battle over history has gone to another level, both in service of his own career and to ensure that the party can dictate whatever version of events it needs to align with current policy.
The tightening of access to sources, official and otherwise, has run in parallel with the introduction of a new criminal offense of “historical nihilism,” which can be wheeled out to suppress any version of the past that the party doesn’t like.
With so many obstacles in their way, historians of modern China, foreign and local, are like detectives in a dangerous, suspicious neighborhood.
Decades may pass before the archives are accessible again or another time when the Chinese themselves, who are either unable or afraid to talk, start to publish memoirs and the like. Without that opening up, we will have little opportunity to gain deep insight into the inner workings of Xi’s rule.
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