Two new memoirs about life in China shed valuable light on the country’s growth from an economic backwater to a modern superpower. While the Communist Party of China remains fixated on hiding and rewriting the past, ordinary Chinese are determined to write the country’s future.
WASHINGTON, DC – Shortly after China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, came to power in late 2012, the Communist Party of China circulated its now-infamous “Document No. 9,” banning seven topics from public discourse. In addition to the obvious – constitutional democracy, civil society, individual rights – the CPC forbade any speech or writing that might fall into the category of “historical nihilism.”
Karoline Kan, Under Red Skies: Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China, Hachette Books, 2019.
WASHINGTON, DC – Shortly after China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, came to power in late 2012, the Communist Party of China circulated its now-infamous “Document No. 9,” banning seven topics from public discourse. In addition to the obvious – constitutional democracy, civil society, individual rights – the CPC forbade any speech or writing that might fall into the category of “historical nihilism.”