The Cycle of China Funk (Pour one out for “Talk Talk China”) buckled under the weight of Xi Jinping exultation and bizarre new security measures which in theory are meant to protect National People’s Congress delegates on their way to and from the Great Hall of the People but which many suspect are just another way to suck what is left of “fun” out of Beijing.
For the record, I think the security measures are reasonable given that almost every star in the Chinese political firmament who hasn’t (yet) been incarcerated or chased into exile by General Secretary Xi Jinping is here in the city. That it is also sucking what is left of the “fun” out of Beijing I’m sure is just a nice bonus for the powers that be. A little extra taint tickle for the boys at the Ministry of State Security as they’re forced to swallow a giant wad of bullshit memoranda about security risks to the Motherland. You know, like foreign students, and beer pong, and the Chinese constitution.
While the Party proceeds to eat the apparatus of government like some unholy cross between the Ouroboros and a human centipede and Xi Jinping steers the ship of state into uncharted waters, my Twitter Feed and (for a nanosecond) my WeChat feed were all about an eye-rolling millennial journalist who is, I am sure, either on her way to a coal mine in the dankest part of Shanxi Province or a three-year journalism fellowship at Columbia depending on which shady government organization got to her first.