Chinese economist Zhu Hengpeng disappeared after criticizing Xi Jinping, the WSJ reported. He reportedly made comments on China's sluggish economy.

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.

    • volodya_ilich@lemm.eeEnglish
      35·
      3 months ago

      It turned a backwater pre-capitalist empire where 80% of the population were poor farmers, into the second world power in unprecedentedly quick industrialization and development, defeated the Nazis and prevented their extermination of the Slavic people including Poles and Ukrainians, it guaranteed rights to women and to national minorities like Kazakh, Uzbeki, Georgians, Armenians, it established for the first time in history concepts like socialized healthcare and pensions for every citizen which western Europe later emulated… After being dismantled, of which it’s been 33 years, Russia still hasn’t recovered the GDP per capita of the USSR, so what does that tell you about how well liberalism is working in Russia?

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        3 months ago

        Socialised healthcare and pension first came during Bismarck’s time-- long before communism has come to Russia.

        • volodya_ilich@lemm.eeEnglish
          24·
          3 months ago

          And how much did they expand in Europe and how long did they last? Anyway, nice that you can only respond to that point

            • volodya_ilich@lemm.eeEnglish
              26·
              3 months ago

              How long did it last in the Weimar Republic (whose ideology you failed to mention btw). And when was it implemented in the rest of Europe.

              But yeah for how long will our glorious liberal democracies have affordable healthcare and pensions, we’ve done nothing but degrade them for the past 30 years because apparently doing better is communism

              • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                41·
                3 months ago

                How long did it last in the Weimar Republic (whose ideology you failed to mention btw).

                Bismarck was long before the Weimar Republic. Jesus Christ.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.eeEnglish
        52·
        3 months ago

        So they’re still around right, because of how well it succeeded? It didn’t completely fail and send the country into famine and despair did it?

        … oh

        • volodya_ilich@lemm.eeEnglish
          35·
          3 months ago

          No, it didn’t “fail” by any historical account. If you look up even on Wikipedia, which has an extremely western bias, you’ll see that the article is called , “dissolution” of the USSR, not failure or crumbling or whatever revisionist word of the day you wanna choose. The USSR was booming, it enjoyed overwhelming legitimacy in the vast majority of its republics (with some notable exceptions in the Baltics mostly) as proven by the soviet referendum to maintain the USSR, and it was only dissolved from the top down by a few party members, not a failure or crumbling by any means. The 90s crisis wasn’t created by socialism, it was created by the newly formed capitalist government which auctioned the country to the most corrupt bidder and created the russian oligarchy that we all hate now. It was literally directed by western institutions like the International Monetary Fund and economists from MIT, you can feel free to study this subject in the slightest if you’re interested and you’ll see that what I’m saying is right (clearly you haven’t done so before).