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As billions of people in China celebrate the National Day on October 1, Chinese society finds itself in the midst of a government-led reconstruction effort that has not been seen in decades.
In the past year, under the banner of “common prosperity”, the government has targeted China’s major social classes, from China’s wealthy and powerful technology tycoons to education, celebrity culture and even the private lives of citizens.
The exact reasons and timing behind the full-scale crackdown are not yet clear, but there are theories that some regulatory actions may have been delayed by COVID-19, or the government may be preparing for the National Congress of the Communist Party of China next year.
Held every five years, the 2022 summit will be unprecedented.
Later Removal of term limit In 2018, President Xi Jinping will enter his third term and can rule China indefinitely.
“(Xi Jinping) wants to prove his leadership in almost all areas of China, whether it is international relations, internal affairs, corruption issues, cultural issues, this is new, so you see all types of sports happening almost simultaneously, the National University of Singapore Senior researcher Lin Taiwei said that it may be to prepare for next year’s major events, including the 2022 Winter Olympics and the Party Congress.
Last month, a tourist took a photo with the image of Chinese singer Zhang Dawei at Madame Tussauds in Beijing.Beijing now targets celebrity culture with new restrictions [File: Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo]Many people set the start date of the crackdown on October 24 last year, when Alibaba founder and technology giant Jack Ma publicly criticized China’s regulatory system in a speech in Shanghai.Soon after the incident, regulators forced Jack Ma’s fintech company Ant Group Suspended its expected $37 billion IPO, Send out shock waves in the global business world.
The tycoon disappeared from public view for three months. Since January, Keep a low profile As Beijing turned its attention to other technology giants in the country.
In July, regulators tracked down the popular ride-hailing app Didi for fear that user data after its listing on the New York Stock Exchange might be leaked by US officials. Didi was removed from the app store and its share price plummeted, raising concerns about the future of the industry.
Concerns about oligarchs
In the past year, China has also passed new legislation to protect user data privacy and target monopolies held by companies such as Jack Ma’s Alibaba and the equally powerful Tencent. At the same time, tax officials have targeted some of China’s most famous celebrities, some of whom owe tens of millions of unpaid taxes, an extension of the larger anti-corruption campaign that Xi Jinping began after he first took office in 2012.
“This is no different from the United States in the’Robber Baron Period’ in the 1890s, and then (President) Teddy Roosevelt’s antitrust campaign. Both periods had new industries, which, in Chinese terms, is’barbaric growth.’ Then the state and politicians stepped in to change the rules of the game because they thought it was unhealthy for the economy,” said Richard McGregor, a senior researcher in East Asia at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and author of “Xi Jinping: Recoil.”
“Obviously, there are factors of state control and party control. The party has always been concerned about the growth of an oligarchy in Russia in the 1990s, which became politically active and politically powerful.”
However, unlike the United States in the Gilded Age, many wealthy Chinese are now asked to donate to the “Common Prosperity Fund.” Some describe it as a black box, even though it aims to solve the growing inequality problem because people worry about it someday It may lead to social unrest.
Narrowing the social gap is also widely regarded as the reason for the government’s measures. Crack down on for-profit private education centers Until recently, this was still a ubiquitous part of life for many students who wanted to compete in China’s highly competitive school system.
Other changes for young people include Computer game time limit In this week and hit fan And the femininity seen in the K-Pop band, or “sissy” in China.
‘Unpredictability’
‘Xi Jinping believes‘, Xi Jinping’s political thought enshrined in the Constitution in 2018 will also be included in the national curriculum and taught in schools ranging from elementary school to high school.
This is a social engineering effort of unknown scale because Mao Zedong is China’s top leader, but it is not clear whether this is entirely due to Xi Jinping.
“We don’t know what comes from the top and what different agencies provide what they think Xi Jinping wants. The progressive left-wing politics in the West is socially liberal, while the left-wing in China is social conservatism, neo-Maoism, anti-sissy, Anti-gaming, anti-celebrity culture. Xi Jinping is obviously worried about private entrepreneurs. Is he personally worried about feminine pop culture? I doubt it,” McGregor said.
Regardless of the motive, and no matter who is making the match, the series of announcements surprised many people.
Wang Maya, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the recent crackdown has highlighted the “continuous unpredictability” of Chinese government rule.
Wang told Al Jazeera: “Although the Chinese government is a dictatorship, in recent years many people have described the Chinese government as a more institutionalized form of governance.”
“I think the radical changes that are taking place as part of Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power ask how accurate the understanding of the Chinese government is.”
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