Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under national security law

I highly recommend doing some reading about what Xi and the CCP are really thinking and planning. It's a fascinating situation, and I'm not sure we or even they precisely know. But there has been a feel of a very dark turn overall in recent years, where perhaps an alignment between an appearance of widespread and growing failures of the US-led world order combined with China's unabated growing power, has cemented in many Chinese a sense that they truly do have the superior system. And if so we should expect to see continued growing trial runs of China flexing its increased power, in part just to see if anyone can stop them.

This recent piece from an influential Beijing professor Jiang Shigong[1] of "Xi Jinping Thought" fame, openly frames and justifies China seizing control as leader of the global empire, "Empire and World Order"[2]

[The current state of world empire] faces three great unsolvable problems: the ever-increasing inequality created by the liberal economy; state failure, political decline, and ineffective governance caused by political liberalism; and decadence and nihilism created by cultural liberalism. In the face of these difficulties, even the United States has pulled back in terms of worldwide military strategy, which means that world empire 1.0 is currently facing a great crisis, and that revolts, resistance, and revolution from within the empire are unravelling the system. ...

We might conclude that we are living in an age of chaos, conflict, and massive change in which world empire 1.0 is in decline and trending toward collapse, while we are as yet unable to imagine world empire 2.0. Yet we must recognize that change in the form of empire is a long historical process. The several thousand years of the history of mankind have witnessed only three great changes in imperial form, and each of these changes has been accompanied by great conflicts and chaos. At the same time, we cannot deny that these ages of historical transition have also created the opportunity for each civilization to construct world empire 2.0. The civilization that is able to provide genuine solutions to the three great problems facing world empire 1.0 will also provide the blueprint for world empire 2.0. As a great world power that must look beyond its own borders, China must reflect on her own future, for her important mission is not only to revive her traditional culture. China must also patiently absorb the skills and achievements of humanity as a whole, and especially those employed by Western civilization to construct world empire. Only on this basis can we see the reconstruction of Chinese civilization and the reconstruction of the world order as a mutually re-enforcing whole.

There really is a coherent internal logic to why China can solve the 3 problems identified with the liberal order. A very dystopian logic, in my opinion. But worth some serious thought; where this all is heading.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shigong

[2] https://www.readingthechinadream.com/jiang-shigong-empire-an...

You really should go read the indictment.

I wonder if this is either very recent (since I haven't been there in over 6 months) or fairly old (before Xi took power). I could hear regular complaints about corruption, governance, and even government, but not the party itself (or particularly and most recently Xi). Granted I've mostly been in northern and central/western China rather than the south, but Guandong and Shenzhen didn't seem that different except for the Canton influence.

I have not (over 20 years) had an open political conversation about the party in China and I would never ask my friends there to entertain it even in the US. There is no point. Even in the US I would only discuss US politics, although they often seemed to be effectively related.

I will say that one of the formative descriptions of Chinese history was in the summer palace next to a statue of an emperor (Ming?) who had commited suicide upon being overthrown... he was by account terrible at ruling so I asked why there was a ;large statue. The answer was that by killing himself and not forcing the soldiers to fight and mandarins to destroy records he had maintained stability. This may be apocryphal, but the stories people tell about themselves are very illuminating.

Airplanes are so expensive and non survivable these days that IMO the next war will be a massive air battle with whoever loses unable to replenish and therefore forced to surrender or be picked apart from the air or escalate. America currently has 10x the aircraft China has and the logistics to back them up (China is catching up). A 2m man army will likely be irrelevant except for fighting regionally, if their enemy has air superiority they will not be very effective.

> will only be questioned if the misinformation has caused a significant financial or social impact

Oh good, so I'm free to speak my own opinion as long as I don't actually try to accomplish anything!