A top economist has joined the growing list of China’s elite to have disappeared from public life after criticizing Xi Jinping, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Zhu Hengpeng served as deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for around a decade.

CASS is a state research think tank that reports directly to China’s cabinet. Chen Daoyin, a former associate professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, described it as a “body to formulate party ideology to support the leadership.”

According to the Journal, the 55-year-old disappeared shortly after remarking on China’s sluggish economy and criticizing Xi’s leadership in a private group on WeChat.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      55 minutes ago

      Reminds me of the Clinton Death List, where anyone tangential to Bill and Hilary who had a bad turn was allegedly victimized to cover up an even more insidious crime.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      4 hours ago

      I had the most hilarious discussion with a Tankie about China a while back. They refused to accept that China is pretty much communist in name only. I pointed out that they had billionaires, privately-owned companies, a stock exchange and private property, meaning you can earn capital in China.

      The Tankie actually said something on the lines of, “If you would JUST READ MARX you would know that earning capital is a fundamental cornerstone of communism!”

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        1 hour ago

        something on the lines of

        Any time someone describes something that happened on the fediverse without providing a link, they are misrepresenting what happened 100% of the time.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Hahaha, are you saying that because it was you on the other end of that discussion? I know you love China so much that you are willing to praise their genocide of Uyghur people.

          Maybe you could distill the theory for us a bit so we can decipher why “socialism” is producing hundreds of billionaires.

      • JustARaccoon@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I mean you can still have private property under communism, it’s the capital making property that’s more owned by the workers themselves, but you can still own things under communism.

        Similarly, you can earn capital under communism too, it’s just that the tools for earning said capital aren’t owned by corporations under corporations under CEOs under the 1%. It’s not a cornerstone for sure, but it’s not like communism is anti capital and growth and owning things

  • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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    4 hours ago

    People complain when Trump and Biden puts tariffs on Chinese products or try to ban Chinese software, or invest hundreds of billions into bringing manufacturing back to the US, but it’s like they just can’t comprehend what a horrific government China has, between an authoritarian police state and leveraging slave labor to take over global industries, they’re a huge threat to freedom everywhere.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Guess Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey was closer to the real story than the originals by Milne…

  • cygnus
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    9 hours ago

    If you think the Chinese economy is bad now, wait 15 years. No amount of sending economists to the gulag will hide this disaster.

    Edit: tankie downvotes are like nectar of the gods to me. Your precious CCP will wither like a plant in the desert.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        51 minutes ago

        92 upvotes would suggest a lot of people.

        But everything you could say about China rings just as true in Europe, in Japan and Korea, in India, in Russia…

        Global populations are heading for a heavy sag, but westerners only know how to heckle the Evil Foreigners.

        • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
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          20 minutes ago

          Funny because I’m European, and the GDP per capita levels of most EU countries are at 2008 levels.

          As for a population pyramid, China will face the same problem as other countries as you say, possibly more magnified.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            10 minutes ago

            EU countries are filling up with war and climate refugees. And… 2008 is one hell of a year to pick as your benchmark.

    • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      I’ve already been banned from Hexbear. Bunch of assclowns over there.

      Edit: and now lemmygrad

      • cygnus
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        9 hours ago

        This is what a healthy population looks like:

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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          9 hours ago

          Even then, it isn’t healthy, just healthier. The USA is still going to going to experience economic issues of a growing elderly population, it just won’t be as bad.

          • Shard@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            This is the new normal for highly developed economies. The best they can hope for is a 1 to 1 replacement of their population. We’re not likely to see another baby boom occur.

            We’re not going to see a typical population pyramid any more. Because that means a large infant death rate and either war, disasters or a massive suicide epidemic cutting away the young adult population to get the pyramid shape.

            • zbyte64@awful.systems
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              1 hour ago

              Given that the amount of habitable land will decrease causing mass migrations, you don’t need a 1 to 1 ratio to maintain a population size.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            45 minutes ago

            it just won’t be as bad.

            glances at Ferguson

            glances at Columbia

            glances at the NYC subway

            How bad are we talking?

          • cygnus
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            8 hours ago

            The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration that they can adjust at will. On the other hand, China’s leadership, being Han supremacist, is not receptive to immigration at all.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              41 minutes ago

              The US have the benefit of essentially limitless immigration

              glances at US immigration policy

              Does it?

              China’s leadership, being Han supremacist, is not receptive to immigration at all.

              Wit drier than a lint trap.

            • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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              6 hours ago

              Immigration definitely helps, especially compared to China. I’m just noting that there will still be some decrease in the ratio of retired workers to current workers.

            • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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              7 hours ago

              Have you… have you seen how Americans have been talking about the border? Especially this election cycle? I don’t know if would characterize either party’s constituencies as “receptive”.

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            9 hours ago

            Basically, yes. The sides are nearly parallel, which is great. Compare with China’s, which forms a steep V. Once GenX hits retirement age they are completely screwed. The CCP’s recent push for “traditional family values” and increased birth rates is no coincidence.

      • Eheran@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        The birthing rates are only dropping, in 15 years all of those people will be to old to work but there are not nearly enough to replace them.

      • cygnus
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        9 hours ago

        Enjoy the 996 becoming 7-10-7

          • takeda@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            996 = working from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, work schedule practiced currently in many companies in China

            7-10-7 = I’m guessing 7am to 10pm, 7 days a week because of worker shortage?

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              38 minutes ago

              Old enough to remember people talking about a 4 day work week and complaining about how many bullshit jobs our economy is swamped with.

              But I guess we actually do have a sever labor shortage and all that surplus manufacturing jettisoned out into the global market simply isn’t enough.

          • cygnus
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            8 hours ago

            996 is a term the Chinese use to describe working 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week.

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    4 hours ago

    Western media talking about “disappearances” is always the funniest thing to me. If somebody just goes like a week without appearing on TV, they can say they “disappeared,” and the audience will immediately assume that they’re in some black site with a bag over their head. If they show up the next week and tell everyone they’re fine, then they have plausible deniability since they never actually said anything bad happened to them. Of course, then you’ve got your audience primed to believe that something’s up and can write another headline like, “Questions remain regarding the disappearance of so-and-so.” Once you get a name trending, it doesn’t matter what the facts are.

    I remember coming under fire from an irl friend over the “disappearance” of tennis player Peng Shuai… until she reappeared, and the International Olympic Committee confirmed that she was perfectly fine. The only evidence that anything bad had happened to her was the lack of a public appearance, but then, after making public appearances, the story didn’t die, instead each new appearance simply gave the media more to talk about, keeping it in the public consciousness and always insisting that “questions remain.”

    Of course, that’s not even mentioning all the times the media doesn’t just claim a “disappearance” but just outright lies about these things. If Business Insider can’t even muster up a “detained,” it’s pretty safe to assume it doesn’t mean anything. And of course, if someone says anything critical of the government, then they are immediately absolved of any and all suspicion of having committed actual crimes - absolutely zero investigation into the charges of corruption is needed for everyone to conclude with 100% certainty that they’re trumped up.

    I can’t wait to see how many downvotes I can get lmao.

    • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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      I try to take such claims seriously and I think we all should, just in case there’s any truth to them and someone is actually kidnapped. Of course knowing that they may not have been. Flagging certain individuals as potentially at risk isn’t wrong per se. But I get your point about how it is a relatively easy claim to make and exploitable politically. Still, I think it should be taken seriously, just in case.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        1 hour ago

        That’s perfectly fine, I just think it’s important to treat claims critically, and to understand what it actually means to say that someone has “disappeared” in this context - it doesn’t mean that their friends or family have reported them missing, it doesn’t mean that a reporter has checked their house and found it abandoned, it just means that they haven’t been on TV, and it requires a lot of assumptions on the part of the audience to conclude from that that they’ve been kidnapped or extrajudicially detained.

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Truly no emperor has ever worn such fine clothes as our beloved Xi. This will absolutely never backfire on them