CCTV FOLLIES 2.20 Xi craze gets cracking

When Xi is not in the picture, his thoughts are worth a thousand pixels -Party members dig into Xi's Selected Readings with intense ardor -Belt and Road is a chart-buster! -Japan not good -US bad

It must be tiresome being the titular head of a massive personality cult, and, after all, even super-heroes deserve a day off now and then. Xi Jinping gets his day of rest by letting his voluminous ghost-written corpus do the talking. Pictured above, the Selected Readings of Xi are the latest (semi-involuntary) craze for party members to demonstrate they can talk the talk and strut the stuff of their aloof master. Not only do they have to pore through the turgid phraseology, but have to show a quasi-religious fervor in doing so. CCTV films their study sessions in excruciating detail, but the payoff is real. If the microphone is placed in front of them for a “candid” opinion, they know exactly what to say according to Xi Jinping thought, the New Journey, Chinese-style socialism, etc.

In other domestic news, the economy is doing so great it needs half a dozen charts to show its stuff, everything from the belting them out of the park stats from “Beltonomics” (the Belt and Road is a super…