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| Click to enlarge for easy reading. Or, online here. |
I don’t know if they’re correct in their assessment, but I hope they are. Coz I got Xi wrong at the outset back in 2012 (then so did many others including the Speccie itself), and I’ve rather disliked Xi and what he stands for (dictatorship). That’s just my wishful thinking. It would also be better for Chinese and the world. As we see above.
ADDED: people say “Oh, but he’s popular”. To which:
a. Can we trust polls in China? Maybe, maybe not. But in any case…
b. So what? Most dictators are popular, at least with “the masses”. Stalin was popular (though not with Kukaks and Ukrainians). Mao was popular, though not with the intelligentsia. He still is. Taxi drivers have his pic hanging from their rear-view mirrors. Which I find quite repulsive. He was a brutal, merciless dictator, directly responsible for tens of millions of deaths. The headline above is a play on “The Great Leap Forward”, Mao’s crazy policy which led to millions dying of hunger.
Lest we forget: Putin too is popular. Though, like Stalin, not among Ukrainians.
So, “so what?” If Xi too is popular?
