Chinese economist Zhu Hengpeng, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, recently disappeared after criticizing dictator Xi Jinping's economic policies in a private online chat group.
According to a source familiar with the case, Zhu, 54, was detained after posting “comments about China's economic decline and implicit criticism of the death of President Xi Jinping” on WeChat. said of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Tuesday.
No one familiar with the case would cite the exact words that led Zhu to “disappear.” The Wall Street Journal Chinese authorities were not immediately available to comment on the status of Zhu's case, the charges against him, or whether he had hired a lawyer.
Zhu's last public comments were in April, when he made a controversial suggestion that young people in China deposit money directly into their parents' pension accounts to plug a huge financial gap.
Chinese social media was horrified by the idea, pointing out that youth unemployment is so high and the younger generation is full of despair, so forcing them to pay extra taxes to support their parents' pensions is like lighting a match on a powder keg.
Sometime between his controversial April remarks and the May 25 meeting where he was supposed to appear before the academic committee, Zhu quietly disappeared from public view. He does not appear to have attended the meeting, and all mentions of him have since been removed from the meeting records.
Before his sudden downfall, Zhu was a highly respected figure among China's elite and had served as deputy director of the Institute of Economic Research and deputy Communist Party secretary for the institute.
Zhu has worked at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), an influential advisory body that reports to the State Council, China's equivalent of the cabinet, for more than 20 years and specializes in health economics. He became deputy director of the CASS Economic Research Institute 10 years ago.
Zhu also served as a director of China Meihe Group, a state-owned pharmaceutical company, from 2013 to 2015. All of Zhu's titles and positions were stripped without warning and most of his online presence was deleted.
CASS has recently been subject to a political indoctrination campaign requiring its leaders to sign a pledge to adhere to Communist Party doctrine on economic issues, including “ten prohibitions,” a list of topics CASS officials are forbidden from discussing, and a strict prohibition against “colluding with foreign organizations.”
Gao Xing, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a loyal subordinate of Xi Jinping, proudly declared that the Ten Prohibitions meant that officials should be “fearful in their hearts, careful in their words, and restrained in their actions.” He personally led some of the political indoctrination sessions.
China watchers have compared Zhu's disappearance to the infamous downfall of Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Dare At an event in Shanghai in October 2020, he criticized the Chinese Communist Party's economic policies.
Ma was China's richest man at the time and a glamorous figure in the Chinese media, but he disappeared without a trace, then reappeared in exile a few months later, and finally Welcomed China will likely put that plan into action again in March 2023, when President Xi Jinping and his cronies will be desperate to lure foreign investors back to its struggling post-pandemic economy.
Another notable “disappearance” was that of Defense Minister Ri Sang-bok. Evaporated In August 2023, Chinese censors removed Li from the government without naming a replacement. A few months later, President Xi Jinping formally fired Li and Communist Party media announced he was under investigation for corruption allegations.
Xi Jinping may be especially sensitive to criticism of his economic policies by party officials because launch Plummeting consumer confidence is one of the biggest problems facing China's central planners as they launch desperate stimulus measures to reinvigorate the country's moribund economy.
