CCTV FOLLIES 2.7 HU JINTAO SAYS HELLO!

Hu Jintao is back in the news! -Well, not really -But he did get a mention -But the mention comes at a high price -The price? -Stripping Hu and other party elders of all respect, dignity and autonomy.

It’s not everyday you hear Hu Jintao’s name in the news. Not much about him before he got forcibly dragged off the stage on Xi’s orders during Xi’s choreographed coronation at the 20th party congress in 2022, and we’ve hardly a whimper from him since.

In today’s Xinwen Lianbo broadcast, Hu Jintao wasn’t exactly singled out for praise, nor was his name invoked as a polite reminder that he actually led the nation for many years.

Hu Jintao is just a name, one name among many, lumped together in a way designed to diminish effect.

It’s true that Hu was at the top of the list, but the list that followed was a long one. The CCP under Xi is loath to mention anyone that came before him, but they are still sticklers, beholden by party tradition, to name people in descending rank order, and Hu, having been the leader of all of China, is pretty high on the list.

The rigidly gradated party hierarchy can be fiddled with to some extent (haven’t heard Bo Xilai’s name for a while) but who needs to list things in alphabetical or chronological order when you have a tried and true CCP way of lining ‘em up?

And when’s the last time you heard a thing from these once household names?

These are big, famous names who have been dispatched to the dust bin of history by the brook-no-rivals Xi Jinping.

Not one of these old codgers can get a word in edgewise these days. The party’s always been weird and unyielding in terms of protocol. Even Mao complained of feeling useless and unseen, like a Buddha on the shelf, during Liu Shaoqi’s bureaucratic rise to prominence.

Yet surely Hu Jintao and other comrades named above would be grateful of a little “Buddha-on-the-shelf” treatment, but instead they get the garbage bin.

And yet they were once among the most powerful people on planet China.

Hu Jintao, Zhu Rongji, Wu Banguo, Wen Jiabao, Li Zhanshu…

Brings back memories, doesn’t it?

Just hearing a name can bring back a flood of associations, but these names, not really that old at all, sound like an echo of a by-gone century. Nice to know they are alive, though perhaps not exactly free, with so many state guards and minders they might as well be under house arrest.

Naturally none of them was permitted to say a word in their own right.

Still, it’s almost bracing to hear names of people who don’t count themselves among the current hacks and sycophants of Xi Jinping. Such measured and nuance voices, old-fashioned voices, are conspicuous by their absence from TV and national debate these days.

Among other names innumerated:

Wang Qishan, Zhang Guoli, Jia Qingling, Wang Yang, Song Ping.

Dozens of names are read out in all. Cleverly lumping them together in one very long list naturally reduces the importance of any one individual, and none of them gets more than a second or two of air time. But what a gesture!

“Xi and other Party and state leaders wished the veteran comrades a happy Spring Festival, good health and longevity.”

Xi-what a guy! What a nice guy! He is such a nice guy he magnanimously included these old crones in the “happy new year” greeting issued by his office!

But wait! Even the smallest sliver of recognition comes at a steep price. When Xi extends to these distinguished “old comrades” a friendly nod, he expects something in return, something for him, something to bolster his not insignificant ego. He likes to be singled out, and he likes to get what he wants. And he got it. He got a mouthful of marble-mouthed encomium in return for giving the forgotten, but not completely forgotten, politicos a fleeting hint of recognition.

In return for dispatching a Hallmark greeting card with Chinese characteristics, Xi got showered with praise.

(Editor’s note: Whether any of the giants of yesteryear actually expressed anything remotely close in fidelity to the paraphrased praise quoted below is a serious question, and even when people do say improbable things like this, it can be easily argued they are just going through the motions and don’t really mean it.)

What did the elders in their collective wisdom based on the trials and tribulations of long and distinguished public careers have to say?The veteran comrades expressed the hope that:

“the Party, the military and Chinese people of all ethnic groups would unite even more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and continuously enhance cohesion and forge the Party's soul with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

Wow.

What at first looked like a tip of the hat to the party giants who lorded over China before the incomparable Xi came to the helm, turns out, after a cursory examination, to in fact be a set up for which the punchline is a self-congratulatory message issued by Xi’s own propagandists!

The entire news segment, read out by the studio anchor, slyly asserts (without any quotes, attribution or face time for the old comrades) that his predecessors unananimously support Him, his Thought, and His Reign.

“They voiced wholehearted support for Xi's core position in the Party’s Central Committee and in the Party as a whole.”

Xi’s quasi-diabolical hijacking of CCTV and other propaganda organs takes the concept behind the term “killing with faint praise” to new and audacious heights, and suggests a new variation on the theme. Xi has dispatched erstwhile rivals to a purgatory of permanant insignificance with exchange of a simple New Year’s greeting.

In other news…

Xi addresses the United Front and various other non-party fronts for CCP policy.

Xi says: “We stood up to external pressure and overcame domestic difficulties, made all-out efforts to boost economic recovery and development, and had successfully achieved the main projected targets of economic and social development.”

Xi noted that non-party political parties and personages without party affiliation have continued to strengthen ideological and political consensus for multiparty cooperation over the past year.

In other Xi-related news….

Once the Xi-dominated news is over, there’s little time for anything else, but the editors had the good sense to post some pretty pictures celebrating the arrival of the year of the dragon.

And a very happy new year from UN bureaucrats whose job it is to say happy new year.