River water flows east ...
James Palmer reminds us in Foreign Policy that deaths of CCP leaders are sometimes … inconvenient. Announcement of a death may be delayed by hours or days while CCP figures out what the death means. Deng Xiaoping’s death was not reported immediately. Jiang Zemin was not nearly so popular as Deng, but he was known as not-so-loyal opposition to Xi Jinping. His death amid virus-related protests including denunciations of Xi everywhere in China requires some … consideration.
On November 30 Shanghai blogger Qin Feng reported – pointedly, again, in the same words - jiang shui dong liu qu the river water flows to the east. She had posted that on November 13 and her wechat was immediately blocked by CCP. She posted it again yesterday.
I have no information about any relationship of Qin Feng to the Jiang family. It is possible that she is the daughter of an acquaintance of the family from many years ago, or that someone in her family worked for Jiang at one time. It is possible that she is just making stuff up. There has been a Jiang death watch for years now. He was 96.
No matter. Since we are returning rapidly to an information-free China, when speculation and conspiracy theories are all we have to go on, I'm going with this. Qin had some inside information from about two weeks ago. Her post was odd – what could it mean? The Jiang could be a reference to Jiang Zemin. This odd post was then blocked by CCP. When she regained her access to wechat - after Jiang's death was announced - she posted it again.
There is the joke about eastern European political intrigue, when nations were competing frantically both publicly and surreptitiously. Deception was the order of the day. A meeting was scheduled between two fierce opponents, meant to clear the air at least a little. Hours before the meeting, the chief negotiator on one side died. Hearing of the death, the lead on the other side mused. "Died? I wonder what he means by that."
Et tu, Jiang.
