Long-term resident of China (20 years) here. This was very good, actually descriptive of the China I know, unlike 99% of western media reports.
On the censorship issue, I want to complicate the picture a bit. I think all descriptions of increasing Chinese censorship are deeply flawed, because they fail to account for the massive general increase in information that the internet has brought.
So: "...to people who grew up in Hu’s China, Xi’s regime feels like a clear step backwards."
I don't know about the regime, but I have access to a lot more information now than I did under Hu, because the internet is better.
"The censoring of Southern Weekly, previously a well-regarded Chinese newspaper, is emblematic"
Sure - but the Southern Weekly and others in the Southern stable, while "well-regarded," were never actually good. What has happened is this: factional debate in China used to sometimes happen in the newspapers. It was exciting to read when it happened. Western observers salivated at the access it gave them to current Chinese political thought, which is usually very opaque. But it was always opinion within the current acceptable range of political possibility. No one who thought the CPC should not be in power ever wrote in the Southern Weekly.
About 10 years ago (I think), that kind of newspaper debate stopped. It went online, private, and into other channels. Western commentators sighed, and said, oh dear, the newspapers have been censored. But that's not really what happened: they were always very heavily censored. Now they're just heavily censored media where nothing of import is talked about.
As to total censorship: the internet is routing around. The outbreak of Covid is a classic example. The news got out, really fast. Much faster than the authorities wanted. And they cracked down later, notoriously jailing the doctor who broke the story. But the story still got out. That was basically unthinkable under Hu. (Example: the city where I live, Xiamen, was the site of one of China's few successful environmental protests, back in about 2007. I watched them march in the streets to stop a chemical plant being built near our city center. That news never got out - never reached other people, never got into the media.)
So the real censorship landscape is: increasing censorship, yes; but failing to keep up with the internet, so overall we are getting more information, not less.
The same applies here:
"Universities that previously had a long leash..." universities never had a long leash. This is rose-tinted nonsense. Any prof who had genuinely radical/democratic/non-communist views would have been weeded out at any time during the last 40 years. This is just more people going to university, so censorship has become more visible.
The other thing I would like people to know about China right now is that Xi's anticorruption campaign has been very effective for ordinary day-to-day stuff. When my older son was born 15 years ago, we stuffed cash in an envelope and gave it to the doctor to make sure my wife was treated well in the hospital. We don't do that any more.
(There's still plenty of corruption, running through personal acquaintance networks, but the cash bribery part of ordinary transactions has been effectively stamped out in my middle-class city. Teachers react with horror if you try to buy them a gift; we recently had a house refitted and the man who came to check whether our gas main was properly routed wouldn't accept a bribe, so we had to install an extra door.)
From my perspective, this elimination of cash bribery has been a massive benefit. Whatever the intentions behind it, it's made life much better.
Obligatory disclaimer: Anything positive I say about China or its government should not be understood to mean that I support its censorship, oppression, or imprisonment of innocent people.
Long-term resident of China (20 years) here. This was very good, actually descriptive of the China I know, unlike 99% of western media reports.
On the censorship issue, I want to complicate the picture a bit. I think all descriptions of increasing Chinese censorship are deeply flawed, because they fail to account for the massive general increase in information that the internet has brought.
So: "...to people who grew up in Hu’s China, Xi’s regime feels like a clear step backwards."
I don't know about the regime, but I have access to a lot more information now than I did under Hu, because the internet is better.
"The censoring of Southern Weekly, previously a well-regarded Chinese newspaper, is emblematic"
Sure - but the Southern Weekly and others in the Southern stable, while "well-regarded," were never actually good. What has happened is this: factional debate in China used to sometimes happen in the newspapers. It was exciting to read when it happened. Western observers salivated at the access it gave them to current Chinese political thought, which is usually very opaque. But it was always opinion within the current acceptable range of political possibility. No one who thought the CPC should not be in power ever wrote in the Southern Weekly.
About 10 years ago (I think), that kind of newspaper debate stopped. It went online, private, and into other channels. Western commentators sighed, and said, oh dear, the newspapers have been censored. But that's not really what happened: they were always very heavily censored. Now they're just heavily censored media where nothing of import is talked about.
As to total censorship: the internet is routing around. The outbreak of Covid is a classic example. The news got out, really fast. Much faster than the authorities wanted. And they cracked down later, notoriously jailing the doctor who broke the story. But the story still got out. That was basically unthinkable under Hu. (Example: the city where I live, Xiamen, was the site of one of China's few successful environmental protests, back in about 2007. I watched them march in the streets to stop a chemical plant being built near our city center. That news never got out - never reached other people, never got into the media.)
So the real censorship landscape is: increasing censorship, yes; but failing to keep up with the internet, so overall we are getting more information, not less.
The same applies here:
"Universities that previously had a long leash..." universities never had a long leash. This is rose-tinted nonsense. Any prof who had genuinely radical/democratic/non-communist views would have been weeded out at any time during the last 40 years. This is just more people going to university, so censorship has become more visible.
The other thing I would like people to know about China right now is that Xi's anticorruption campaign has been very effective for ordinary day-to-day stuff. When my older son was born 15 years ago, we stuffed cash in an envelope and gave it to the doctor to make sure my wife was treated well in the hospital. We don't do that any more.
(There's still plenty of corruption, running through personal acquaintance networks, but the cash bribery part of ordinary transactions has been effectively stamped out in my middle-class city. Teachers react with horror if you try to buy them a gift; we recently had a house refitted and the man who came to check whether our gas main was properly routed wouldn't accept a bribe, so we had to install an extra door.)
From my perspective, this elimination of cash bribery has been a massive benefit. Whatever the intentions behind it, it's made life much better.
Obligatory disclaimer: Anything positive I say about China or its government should not be understood to mean that I support its censorship, oppression, or imprisonment of innocent people.