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Quote of the Day: China or the US?
In China, the Communist Party can fabricate evidence, force confessions, and level whatever charges it chooses, untethered to the facts.
Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China by Desmond Shump, 262.
It sounds a lot like the FBI or the CIA and various supporters in the MSM.
Published in Group Writing
As Jim Geraghty says, we thought opening up to China would make them more like us. Instead it’s making us more like them.
Any high school youth group could have told us that.
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Why is there no BDS movement against China? I know the left won’t do it because they LUUUUUUUV commies, but why don’t we on the right promote the idea?
Yes
It would be nigh impossible.
I just finished reading Shum’s Red Roulette. Excellent read.
He explains a great deal about China from an inside perspective. One of the characters that blows through is Xi Jinpeng, whom Shum knew as he rose to power. Shum also reveals that the decision to de-liberalize was taken in 2008, long before Xi had real power. He explains the power structure in China as well. The anti-corruption campaigns are also covered.
Shum’s hands are far from clean, however, and he reveals this. His wife was the one with the initial party contacts that is surprising as she was a Christian. She has disappeared.
Could have taken the words right out of my mouth.
I also read Shum’s book. The impression I came away with is that the CCP is mainly a kleptocracy supported by an all-knowing police state. The purpose of being in power was to accumulate wealth.
There were many stories of lavish dinners with $1,000+ entrees and a $100,000 vertical tasting of Chateau Lafite. The power came from letting others know you didn’t care how much these extravagances cost.
As @HangOn stated, Shum isn’t a sympathetic character. The structure of life under the CCP didn’t bother him as long as it was to his benefit. Only when Shum grew “too tall” and was cut down, similar to what happened to Jack Ma of Alibaba, that Shum realized the consequences of an all-powerful state.