Editor’s note for Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Dear reader,

My apologies: Yesterday’s News Briefing section of this newsletter somehow did not make it into the email. You can catch up here if you want to know about battling nationalist commentators and China’s declining box office numbers.

Regular readers know that I am very skeptical of media stories about a palace coup against Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 or any stories of dissent that go beyond mere grumbling about the Chairman of Everything.

CIA veteran and China scholar Christopher K. Johnson is similarly unconvinced by stories of the Chairman’s imminent troubles. In a piece published last week, he says that “Xi has a plan and is executing it, even if it is not to the West’s liking,” and so “foreign governments would be wise to deal with Xi as he is if they seek to mount effective policy responses.”

The latest evidence that Xi is almost unassailable right now: The Communist Party’s house newspaper, the People’s Daily, leads today’s front page with a piece on Xi’s New Development Concept, which official media and propaganda continue to laud as one of the great leader’s great achievements.

Our word of the day is New Development Concept (新发展理念 xīn fāzhǎn lǐniàn).

• On September 1, we’re changing our name from The China Project to The China Project.
• I’ll be in London from September 19 to 21, sharing a stage with many of the U.K.’s most knowledgeable China specialists for a three-day course at the School of Oriental and African Studies: China and the Media — Who Decides the Stories? The China Project will also host a live podcast in London that week.
• Our NEXTChina 2022 conference is on November 9 and 10, virtually and physically in New York.