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.

  • Flying SquidM
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    04 hours ago

    Mensheviks came to be associated with the position that a bourgeois-democratic revolution and period of capitalism would need to occur before the conditions for a socialist revolution emerged.

    And yet they never said you would go from a position of socialism where the earning of capital was eliminated to a pretty much entirely capitalist country and then somehow reach communism.

    Because that makes no sense.

    And you and everyone else arguing for this are ignoring that.

    • @PugJesus
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      24 hours ago

      And yet they never said you would go from a position of socialism where the earning of capital was eliminated to a pretty much entirely capitalist country and then somehow reach communism.

      Socialism with Chinese characteristics is just taking cues from the popular sport of ping-pong.

      • Flying SquidM
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        24 hours ago

        I’m honestly waiting for something like that. It’s so fucking weird to think that dawn has to keep getting darker for the sun to rise.

        • @PugJesus
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          24 hours ago

          A few more rounds of Great Leaps Forward followed by ultracapitalism will definitely result in our dictatorship of the proletariat almost being ready to dissolve. We just need to run the cycle a few times until our noble and selfless elites decide it’s time to surrender power.

    • @[email protected]
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      03 hours ago

      My brother in Christ, Mensheviks and Dengists were against the consolidation of centralised socialist economy before the historical consolidation of capital in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the difference being that Menshevism died off and Dengism ended up taking the lead after Maoism. The restoration of capital is simply a consequence of Dengism taking over AFTER Maoism, not because Dengists believed there should be first Maoism and then Dengism.

      • Flying SquidM
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        23 hours ago

        Cool. How many billionaires does China get to have before they get rid of them and go to communism? Because it currently stands at over 800 according to my searching. When will their billions be distributed to the masses rather than to their children?

        • @[email protected]
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          33 hours ago

          For the last time, I’m not the ultimate supporter of themselves Chinese model of Communism, now that I’ve shown you that your position stems from being uneducated about socialism, its meaning, and its history, you resort to “how many gazillionaires” because you’re not trying to have a civilised discussion. You have a preconceived notion that “China isn’t communism”, which is fine, so do I, but when confronted with the discrepancies within the communist movement and how there are legitimate arguments to call it socialist and on the way to communism, you just spout your initial position again with stronger words. I’ll tell you what I said at the beginning: I don’t care whether it’s communist or not, but you saying “hurr durr no socialism if billionaires” is a shitty argument from ignorance.

          • Flying SquidM
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            03 hours ago

            Accuse me of whatever you like. The fact is that China is becoming ever-more capitalist and suggesting that is the path to communism is silly unless you can explain things like how to distribute a severely unequal amount of wealth.